My Lords,

There are three terrifying twists of logic in the proposals before us which make me shudder with a kind of atavistic moral horror. I have no doubt that the proposals have been created with good intention – but that makes the dangers they carry even more frightening.

Let me spell out the three twists in the moral logic.

The first concerns the concept of personal autonomy. I do not doubt that personal autonomy is a moral good – but it is not the only determinant of what constitutes human meaning and purpose. My meaning and purpose consist not only in exercising individual choice – but I have to do that in a social context. If I exercise personal freedoms regardless of the well-being of others – then I live in an a-moral world of my own. My human meaning is partly constructed in relationships with others – which is why we give love the highest value. And I want to argue that the capacity to grow in understanding of myself and my relationships with others can and does go on developing right up to the moment of death.

I was, for a while, a part-time chaplain at a hospice. It was a privilege beyond description to share with others in caring for the dying and their families. You will know that hospices are places of profound peace where some of the noblest and most precious aspects of our humanity are discovered. They are places where daily miracles occur – where depths of love and truth, often neglected in our busy lives can be encountered. I recall a particular patient: an Austrian woman who for most of her life had lived entirely alone. She was formidably independent.

I was sitting with her a day or two before her death when, looking around at her fellow-patients she said to me: “This is the best trade union I have ever been in…”. She said the words with a seraphic smile and with a quiet and astonished pride. Her understanding of herself in relationship with others had simply been transformed.

This Bill, in an attempt to give the highest value to personal autonomy (“the right to choose”), denies one of the most significant truths about our humanity. We are not simply individuals – we are at our most human in relationship to and with others. “No man is an island” – not even in death. So: by what authority, by what right do we want to legislate to deny this truth of our humanity? This is individualism pushed to a horrifying and giddy conclusion.

The second twist in the logic concerns ‘compassion’. I have heard many claim that euthanasia is compassionate, merciful even. But as Professor Robin Gill has pointed out, the net result of introducing legislation on compassionate grounds is that we could create a society which is “distinctly less compassionate. In such a society the elderly might feel pressured not to continue their lives at the expense of the young. The permanently disabled might feel the same. The health service might put less resources into palliative and geriatric care”. (Pg 27: Euthanasia and the Churches: Cassell: 1998). In the name of compassion this Bill could create a merciless society. Is it any wonder I shudder?

The third twist in the logic centres on the concept of dying with dignity. Of course all of us would wish that for ourselves and for others: but our dignity, like our autonomy, is also built on trusting relationships. The relationship between doctor and patient has to be based on absolute trust and only on absolute trust can dignity be assured. To achieve the goal of dignity this Bill would destroy the very trust which makes dignity possible.

This Bill claiming to uphold personal autonomy denies the very means by which autonomy is discovered and exercised; on grounds of compassion it could destroy compassion; on grounds of dignity it could undermine dignity.

I believe, of course, as a Christian in the profound and inalienable sanctity of human life; I believe that our life is God-given and that the purpose of our lives is not terminated by death.

But this Bill threatens all of us: believers and non-believers alike, because it could by a terrible and frightening irony destroy the very values which it claims to uphold. We can not and must not allow it to pass.