If assisted suicide becomes legal within the UK, would NHS staff have a right to veto Christian prayers being said when the lethal injections are administered? The query could appear far-fetched, however it is raised by the experience of author Matthew Hall who witnessed the recent death of his late aunt in Canada.Â
In Canada, assisted suicide has been legal since 2016 and is officially termed Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).
Hall wrote about his experience in The Spectator magazine on September 21 and it makes for fascinating reading.
His aunt was 72 and within the early stages of motor neurone disease. She made the choice earlier this 12 months to undergo MAiD against the needs of her family.
Hall wrote: “My aunt had wanted me along with her at the top. She knew that I’m a practising Christian (there may be nothing like being brought up within the Eighties by self-proclaimed ‘radical vegans’ to drive you into the arms of the church) and I sensed that deep-down she was conflicted about religion – that beneath all of the crystals and dream-catchers there was still a remnant of the religion that as a teenage art student in late-Nineteen Sixties London she had dismissed as stuffy and old-fashioned.”
Hall made it clear to her that he didn’t approve of euthanasia and could be saying prayers for her as she died. He didn’t tell her that he intended to read Anglican prayers for the dying. This left him with a “conundrum” – “the way to give her what I knew she wanted but which could nevertheless upset the rebellious a part of her even in her final moments”.
In her last moments of consciousness, Hall read out a brief prayer which he had translated into Welsh. His aunt looked up in “momentary surprise and delight on the sound of the language her father had often spoken at home”, although, not being a Welsh speaker herself, she didn’t know that Hall had prayed: “Into your loving arms, O Lord, we commend your servant…”
Hall continued: “As the subsequent syringe went in and the life drained from her, I used to be in a position to read the prayers for the dying aloud. The friends and relations within the room told me afterwards that they appreciated them, grateful that this traumatic occasion had been made right into a solemn ceremony.”
But the doctor, Hall related, “seemed unmoved.”
“Less than a minute after declaring his patient dead, I heard him within the kitchen saying his goodbyes and chuckling at something, perhaps in relief that what had probably been an unexpected ordeal for him was over,” Hall wrote.Â
He recorded the discomfort of the nurse involved in his aunt’s euthanasia on the Christian prayers being said: “For some reason, the nurse remained within the room a bit longer than she needed to. I overheard her say to my aunt’s friend that hearing the prayers had ‘got to her’.
“It occurred to me that those that opt to die this fashion must seldom be believers. The clinical means of putting someone down – and I take advantage of the phrase advisedly – to which she had develop into inured had been met on this occasion with a belief within the soul, in God, in consequences.”
It looks likely that, as with the Abortion Act 1967, euthanasia will likely be legalised within the UK through a Private Member’s Bill in Parliament with government backing. The BBC reported last December that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer supports a change within the law to permit euthanasia. Now that he’s Prime Minister he has the chance to get what he wants.
On morally contentious issues like abortion and euthanasia, Private Member’s Bills allow governments that need to lift existing restrictions on these practices to realize their aim without ministers having to take responsibility for the laws.
The Mail on Sunday has reported that Labour MPs high up on this month’s ballot allowing them to maneuver Private’s Member Bills within the House of Commons are being encouraged to take forward a proposal to legalise assisted suicide. One Labour MP admitted he has been offered two extra staff to assist him draft laws. https://www.christiantoday.com/article/pm.intends.to.fast.track.assisted.suicide.vote.before.christmas.according.to.reports/142171.htm
Hall’s story flags up the role religious rites may or might not be allowed to play in assisted suicides. It is important that he had his late aunt’s consent to say prayers at her death but she didn’t know prematurely that these could be Anglican prayers. Moreover, before she lost consciousness she didn’t understand the meaning of the precise Anglican prayer he said.
The Labour government would almost actually want to control such a situation. It might be that the NHS rules that followed the laws laid down that relatives will need to have precise consent from their family members over the usage and content of prayers at the purpose of their death.
It would surely be possible for NHS staff uncomfortable with prayers being said during euthanasia to influence patients to withhold their consent. The laws may even give NHS staff the best to forbid prayers being said within the absence of legally witnessed written consent.
Hall’s experience shows that within the Brave New World of assisted suicide God isn’t wanted. Unfortunately, under the ability structures prevailing within the UK it could look like frighteningly easy to banish him from the room.
Julian Mann is a former Church of England vicar, now an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
