Church leaders have expressed “very grave concerns” about proposals to assisted suicide legal in Scotland.
Rev Andrew Downie, Moderator of the United Free Church of Scotland, and Rev Bob Akroyd, Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, are urging MSPs to not support Liam McArthur’s Bill to legalise assisted suicide.
In a letter to all 129 MSPs, they are saying that supporting the proposed laws would cross “a brilliant red moral line” and “mean that Scottish society has lost its trust within the inherent value of all human life”.
They warned that Scotland risks “becoming an ethical wilderness” and said that the Scottish Parliament “should maintain that every one lives are equally meaningful”.
Legalising assisted suicide would send the message that some people “have turn out to be unworthy of life”, they added.
“We imagine, as indicated within the book of Genesis within the Bible, that everyone seems to be created by God in his image – a picture that reflects and expresses his equal love for everybody. As a result, every life has equal value – a price which may only be measured by the sufferings of Jesus Christ on the cross for humanity,” the church leaders write.
“We also imagine that for a civilised society to survive, everyone should imagine that everybody else is equally beneficial. It could be very vital, due to this fact, to know the implications for the Scottish Parliament if it crosses the brilliant red moral line of acknowledging that, if a life doesn’t reach a certain quality, then it loses its value and could be ended.
“It would turn out to be a society where the worth of all human life is definitely unequal and purely relative. It can be a society where the value of each human life could then be graded depending on its usefulness, meaningfulness, and the quantity of delight it might experience.”
The letter ends with a call for quality palliative and hospice care to be developed across Scotland to make people “as comfortable as possible without intentionally ending their lives”.
“Society will then proceed to recognise these patients as having full value and value while accepting them, unconditionally, for who they’re in compassion and care,” they said.
