It was, truly, a Black Friday. 330 MPs in favour. 275 against. It was close. But it just wasn’t close enough. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed its second reading.
Last Friday was a dark day for therefore many who’re vulnerable, particularly those vulnerable to coercion. A dark day for a lot of who’re fearful, particularly those that are disabled. A dark day for all those that shall be diagnosed with terminal illness, who will sooner or later be faced with a selection they need to never have needed to make.
For lots of us, who’ve been praying, working, campaigning on this issue, in some cases for many years, we would feel grief, a way of injustice, and even anger. For our nation has modified. It has sacrificed a few of those that are most in need, on the altar of autonomy.
MPs think they’re making ‘progress’, inexorable, forward-thinking, that they’re ‘on the fitting side of history’, when in fact, assisted suicide would return Britain to a pre-Christian era, a world during which life isn’t any longer sacred, and during which not all lives are of equal value.
‘All get what they need’
We could ask: how did it come to this? I actually think that the reply is kind of easy; in Britain (and the West more generally), we now have made ‘autonomy’ our god.
Gone are the times when the typical MP believed in divinely-mandated moral absolutes, or in ‘the sanctity of life’. Our increasingly secular nation has lost its faith in God because the Author of Life. In His place, we now have erected a recent idol within the midst of our moral vacuum: ourselves.
It was the repeated refrain from the pro-assisted suicide body: ‘I deserve the fitting to decide on.’
In a way, it was ever thus. Just think back to the Garden of Eden. The serpent said to Eve: “God knows that if you eat [the fruit] your eyes shall be opened, and also you shall be like God, knowing good and evil.” And yet Adam and Eve decided to make themselves god, rebelling against His commands. Essentially, they asserted their right to decide on.
Autonomy is the one moral absolute still going; it lies at the center of the gender wars, the debates around life and death, and the one sexual ethic to haven’t yet been eroded, consent.
And in fact, freedom is usually a excellent thing. But if autonomy is the one moral absolute, then who’s the one true judge of excellent and evil? Yourself. That is the literal definition of the word: ‘law by yourself’. In this world, when you don’t desire an assisted suicide, haven’t got one.
Lib Dem MP Tim Farron spoke in the controversy concerning the difference between ‘liberalism’ and ‘libertarianism’. He is, he said, a liberal. He will not be a libertarian: libertarians consider in your absolute right to do whatever you would like. Liberals consider your right to do what you would like is proscribed by its effect on those around you.
And assisted suicide laws will impact those around us, particularly given, under the Bill, a physician can raise the prospect of an assisted suicide with a patient unsolicited.
We have made an idol of ourselves; our freedom; our selections; our bodies. I’ve been reflecting on the words of Romans 1: “Although they claimed to be sensible, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to appear to be a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over within the sinful desires of their hearts…”
Ultimately, God says, ‘Have it your way’. In C.S. Lewis’ ‘The Magician’s Nephew’, the Witch gains lasting life for herself by eating the fruit she was forbidden from taking. Aslan says, “Things at all times work in line with their nature. She has won her heart’s desire; she has unwearying strength and limitless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is barely length of misery and already she begins to realize it. All get what they need; they don’t at all times prefer it.”
This appears like certainly one of those situations: “All get what they need.” Our nation has, for many years, chosen to prize autonomy above all else. As soon as absolute autonomy is your god in a single area of life, it should lay claim to a different. The path towards assisted suicide has been long within the making, after we forgot our obligations to the community and to God, and prioritised our own desires. This is the result.
Protecting the vulnerable
At CARE, we now have at all times been mindful of the impact of assisted suicide laws upon the vulnerable. Proverbs 31:8-9 is a passage near our heart:
“Speak up for individuals who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who’re destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.”
It is well-known that many within the disabled community feel afraid concerning the impact of laws. Stories from Canada show that it has a disproportionate impact upon those living in poverty. In the controversy, Labour MP Jess Asato spoke superbly about how women are particularly vulnerable to coercion from men, and the impact of domestic violence.
Florence Eshalomi, Labour MP for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, who spoke powerfully about her own mother’s experience, concluded her wonderful speech, “true compassion should have equality at its heart. That is why I shall be voting against this bill.”
My heart is grieved for individuals who now feel that little bit less secure. It mustn’t have been so.
Danny Kruger, who led the response to the bill, closed his speech like this:
“I’m talking concerning the individuals who lack agency: the individuals who know what it’s to be excluded from power, to have decisions made for them by bigwigs in distant offices speaking a language they do not understand…Not those who write to us campaigning for a change within the law, however the individuals who come to our surgeries with their lives in tatters, or who the police and social employees tell us about, the individuals with complex needs. What are the safeguards for them? I’ll let you know. We are the safeguard. This place. This Parliament. You and me. We are the individuals who protect essentially the most vulnerable in society from harm.”
It is a tragedy that this safeguard has now been eroded, and we stand closer to the precipice.
Praying for a miracle
Something did change about Britain on that Black Friday. But the elemental truths which we consider in, concerning the fabric of the universe hold just as true now as they’d have done had we won.
There is a God on high. He continues to be sovereign. He does know what He is doing. He does raise up kings. His eye is on the sparrow. He does care about every certainly one of us. He has sent His church to be His hands and feet. Truths are still true.
In the meantime, I shall be praying to the God who “changes times and seasons.” And I’ll still be praying for a miracle. Yes, Parliament has voted on the principle of the bill, and it should be much harder now to stop it than it will have been before.
But we do consider in a God of miracles. It is sort of two years now because the Scottish Parliament passed the Gender Recognition Reform bill, would have introduced self-ID for transgender people in Scotland. That felt like a dark day. And yet, miraculously, the laws didn’t come into law, its architects were unceremoniously faraway from office, and now the thought has been almost entirely dropped.
There are still further stages to return. The bill now goes to Committee stage. It will return to the Commons, at which point MPs who said they’d vote for it, but desired to see changes made, can have to reflect on whether or not they are satisfied with those changes or not.
We do consider in a God of miracles. If Jesus can defeat the ability of the grave, and overturn death, He is greater than able to intervening on an ‘assisted dying’ law.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Peter Ladd is Head of Content at Christian Action Research and Education (CARE).
