October 17, 2024 - 7:00am
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has come out in opposition to a bill to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales which came before the House of Commons for the first time yesterday. The legislation would permit terminally ill adults expected to die within six months to end their own lives with medical assistance.
Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England does not presume to demand even its active worshipping members support any sort of âparty lineâ on issues such as assisted dying or abortion. Indeed, Welbyâs predecessor-but-one George Carey, generally a conservative figure, has in retirement supported previous attempts to legalise assisted suicide. It is likely that at least some currently serving Church of England bishops will either back these proposals, or else seek to strengthen safeguards within them rather than defeating them entirely.
The Church of England is a strange beast when it comes to the culture wars. Internally factionalised, it has some powerful elements which tend to be liberal-Left and some which are not far from a US-style religious Right. Welby, much misunderstood by the media, is certainly not a Left-winger, and in fact comes from the moderate end of its evangelical tendency. Once an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, he now describes himself as a classic floating voter.
Yet, on balance and on average, the people in Anglican pews in the suburbs and villages tend to be liberal on issues of sexual morality while leaning Rightwards politically, while the churchâs bishops tend to be conservative on sexual morals but at least gently Left-ish politically.
Whatever the outcome of the legislative process on assisted dying, there will be a significant public campaign against the proposals, and Welby is set to play a leading role. That might be particularly interesting, because unlike the other progressive social causes that tend to attract Christian opposition, abortion or gay marriage, both the pro- and anti-camps on assisted dying tend to cut across all sorts of other political divisions.
That is because there are Left-wing and Right-wing cases for and against assisted suicide. So Welby may be more prominent in the public eye in the coming months than he has been for many years, working alongside people who wouldnât normally have much to do with an archbishop.
Of course, it is entirely legitimate for Welby to make political interventions like this. Either the Church of England is a vital part of the nationâs social and cultural fabric, and thus deserves to be heard, or else we now live in an entirely secularised context, in which case the Church should no more be silenced on political matters than groups of doctors or celebrities would be.
Welbyâs 12-year-long tenure has contained several major political interventions. The three most significant of these â taking a conservative line on same-sex marriage in his early days, and progressive lines against Brexit and migration later on â werenât noticeably successful.
So the Archbishopâs public intervention is unlikely to unsettle the Government, especially as opinion research shows a consistent and clear majority of the British public in favour of legalising assisted suicide in some form. It should be noted, however, that this majority is not anything like as overwhelming as it is in the case of abortion, which runs at something like 15-to-1.
It is hard to gauge how the public will react to assisted dying being such a priority for the Government so soon after a general election when it is manifestly struggling to deal with the main issues it was elected to fix. Nonetheless, Welbyâs could still be a valuable voice in this debate.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeOn a personal level, Welby is entitled to his opinion, and he doesn’t appear to contend that his view is that of the CofE as a whole. However, I am unsure how he is going to play a part in “the public campaign against the proposals”. My understanding is that the bill is now before Parliament. If it passes through Parliament, then it will be enshrined into law.
It is before Parliament but there could still be considerable change to the detail, as different sections are considered. The force of the bill will be in the detail.
My view is that something will be passed, and those opposing VAD won’t like whatever that is.
Got to go through multiple House of Commons readings plus the House of Lords before it becomes law.
Welby of course sits in the Lords.
I think a Bill will be passed soon enough. Starmer seems very keen on ensuring that.
As an atheist, Stormin’ Starmer has a dog in this fight.
Bizarrely, the bill is starting in the Lords … not a good look IMHO.
I didn’t spot that, thanks. Same thing applies though. Has to go through its stages.
No he can’t, he is the head of the established church and has a seat in the House of Lords. If he is speaking personally he should make that very clear.
This will only be welcomed by those who think that sanctimonious God botherers are entitled to restrict choice and impose their will on others. Fortunately awful people like this represent a tiny fraction of the population even if their spasms of indignation are amplified by Unhetd which is owned by a God bothering billionaire with a vested interest in an obedient population.
Your first sentence was sufficient.
“Sanctimonious God botherers” should have the same right to participate in this debate as anyone else. What they should not have is a veto over policies which have general public approval.
I am not a sanctimonious God botherer (sGb). I am not even a Gb. My wife is a Gb but not of the sanctimonious type. She does not believe in assisted dying but I do.
UnHerd is supposed to be somewhere to air your views, to say what is not said anywhere else, to have a non-mainstream opinion. So, someone who believes in assisted dying can have a discussion with someone who doesnât. That does not mean that the person who is against assisted dying has automatically to be labelled, an sGb. This is like calling someone names in a school playground. âI want my ball back, you sGb.â
Speaking as a sanctimonious God-botherer, we are used to this kind of insult. Sure, the public does want this, and they will get it, and theyâll get it good and hard.
And yes, we will be there to say âwe told you soâ. Sanctimoniously, of course.
i like it! Speaking as a SNOB (sanctimonious no god believer) you have a point . There will undoubtedly be some negative outcomes no matter how good the legislation (eg from bad actors, NHS using it to reduce waiting lists, et al) However what sways me is the other 95% of people who are actually just ordinary decent people trying to help relieve their dying relatives suffering.
There are probably negative outcomes either way. This wouldn’t be up for discussion if there weren’t already significant negative outcomes under the current arrangements. The important thing (for me at least as a SNOB) is finding a better balance where there’s less avoidable suffering and minimising the negative outcomes (no human system being perfect or infallible).
Liam,
Your confidence in being part of the 95% is touching.
It’s more likely that people don’t want God to bother them.
As such, the interventions of clergy like Welby will only sink the opposition to letting people agree to let a paid stranger hasten the end of their life with the permission of the state.
And one could hardly call the Archbishop’s somnambulant verbal extrusions a ‘spasm of indignation’.
Man who resents those who would restrict choice and impose their wills on others resents the news platform he subscribes to for reporting on a view he doesn’t like.
Same man who subscribes to this platform also claims that its owner wants an obedient population.
So far, six people have pressed the thumbs-up button. Obediently!
“sanctimonious God botherers” is surely the language of sanctimonious know-alls, who want to show off their hatred of the religious, of whose belief and understanding they most probably know very little. Such language is merely insulting and has no place in serious discussion. Let’s leave it out, shall we?
Douglas, regarding sanctimonious, perhaps a nice look in an honest mirror could help your perception
Deciding whether one should live or die is surely the most important choice anyone can make? Human Rights were originally intended to protect the individual from the State; perhaps this should be number one on the list?
But the battleground will be over protections from various bad actors. Religion, being false, will just muddy the waters.
Religion, being false, will just muddy the waters.
Im not religious but to claim religion is false when you canât prove it is a bit naive and a desire to believe in something that canât be proven.
In what way will it muddy the waters?
You must live in a world where all configurations are possible until you can ‘prove’ otherwise. Call it open-minded; but it must be a bit of a nightmare.
Whatever, but how will it muddy the waters?
The simple notion that a mythological entity will guide the matter.
That doesnât explain how it will muddy the waters. Their idea that life is sacrosanct is pretty clear. Thereâs nothing mythological about that. One can be an atheist and still believe that. I would assume that to you the life of a child is sacrosanct. They regard a human life the same throughout its lifespan. This is a reasonable idea.
You’ve now removed the religious element from the discussion.
Which is what?
It’s clear you don’t actually know “what”, but are just arguing for the sake of it.
When in a hole, stop digging.
I asked how it muddies the waters. Shouldnât be too hard to answer regardless of what I think.
Iâm not sure that the Catholic Church could be seen to have treated the lives of children as sacrosanct. Many of their organisation were happy to abuse children.I suspect they were not the only ones.
You do have a point about the church, but it still doesnât address the question on how religion will muddy the waters on legislation. Is it that only some views are valid and others not?
“Configurations”? That was a wasted trip to the thesaurus.
What is madness is the idea that the deadliest most corrupt institutions on Earth, governments, are to be empowered even further to kill people, especially vulnerable, sick or troubled.
Danny Finkelstein in the Times wrote a very thoughtful assessment of the pros and cons a couple of days ago. With regards to the imperfect nature of democratic Government: what alternative system do we have that is any better ?
The alternative is Ă strictly limited government that is unable to kill off its most vulnerable citizens, for starters.
Atheists come out of the woodwork every now and then as predictable as bowel movements.
Anybody who thinks the CofEâs opinion actually carries any weight in amongst the English public clearly doesnât understand English society. For most itâs just something that exists in the background, like an elderly distant relative that you only see on family occasions.
elderly distant relatives don’t on the whole officiate at the major points in your life (hatch, match and dispatch) and you don’t generally consider seeking their help if you are in crisis.
You can mark key points in life without the benefit of clergy. Indeed you may argue that religion has elbowed its way into such celebrations in the past as an exercise establishing its own power.
But the House of Lords may well be influenced by what Welby says. And that might make a difference.
I doubt they take him any more seriously than the general population do.
But is it by design or learned helplessness?
Forget the useless Welby (as history almost certainly will), but I am starting to wonder if the government are going about this in a sensible way.
Is a fairly random private members bill really the right way to handle something this important ?
It’s obviously the polically smart way to go – to allow a free vote and [attempt to] decouple the outcome from the government.
But that’s not at all the same thing as making sure we get the best possible legislation and that this is properly and thoroughly debated and reviewed.
The past few decades have repeatedly shown how poor even the best planned government legislation can be. And how frequently basic errors have been caught in parliament – and often not caught.
And quite why this bill is starting in the House of Lords and not the Commons is beyond me. Surely this should be initiated in the Commons ?
While I’m supportive in principle of some legislation and change here, we do need to make sure we get this right in practice. I just wish it weren’t this particular Labour government handling it (it’s not directly their bill, but they’re effectively sponsoring it – classic labour “third way”). If anyone can botch this, they can.
What does all that matter if workable legislation gets passed?
Blaming the critics instead of addressing the herd of elephants in the room. How typical. The history of government inevitably, incrementally devolving reasonable policies into absurd extremes is real. Immigration, climate, censorship, energy. All have been twisted over time into policies that hurt, not help. And now the the same government wants the right to “assist” in dying.
One thing governments have proven worldwide is that they know how to kill. So no thanks. I’ll listen to the guy in the funny hat wearing a robe, not some self declared well meaning promoter selling the idea of government having a new,way to kill off people.
“And now the the same government wants the right to âassistâ in dying“. No. The people want the right to have the government assist them to die.
Sold just like tobacco or covid shots, by actors in white lab coats.
The Archbishop’s compassion can always be outbid by the compassion of those promoting ‘assisted dying’. This latter is the sort of compassion that needs ever more recipients. The cup of the assistors overfloweth.
And the Archbishop isn’t asking the necessary questions. Is a person with terminal cancer dying? Or are they living with terminal cancer? Living with it until the moment they die?
It matters greatly whether it’s living or dying. If living, any attempt to end their life is assisted killing. It would be too much to expect any senior officer of the Church of England to ask such questions since this Church has always been far too close to the state.
Given his position, the Archbishop could aways relay those objections to ‘assisted dying’ that others with less prominence have already done.
For example, if a person has to complete a form with pre-determined criteria to obtain this ‘service’, this is institutional control, not freedom of choice. Bureaucratic oversight is neither the danger nor the slippery slope that the Archbishop refers to. It allows a progression. That progression must have a first stage, a foot in the door.
This bureaucracy already allows the state to determine who is a person and who isn’t. Those unborn are granted person status with a certificate if their mother has suffered a miscarriage. Those of the unborn who are subject to abortion are not.
Then there is the question, raised by Ms Stock on Unherd, about the nature of dignity. Whether it is solely when the bodily functions operate correctly.
If anything that is radically different from currently accepted social norms is promoted with emotion or advertised with romantic allure – beware!
Britain has a weak government which would happily copy the regime in Canada, much as it has done the Democrat policy programme, particularly on green corporatism.
The difference is that this Labour government is too weak and incompetent to apply the Biden economic prescription. We can only hope that the same will apply to failed attempts at installing state euthanasia.
You would admit that are a majority of British voters are in favour of assisted dying though, right?
I would have thought it honestly unarguable that Welby was not politically left leaning, but here we are. Can anyone mention one right wing policy or ideology he has supported in the last decade?
interesting that you say Welby was advising against Brexit, given that a survey showed that 85% of Anglicans voted for it (no surprise there). But why would a senior cleric try to influence us on a matter which is not within the church’s remit? I suppose you could argue that there is a Christian case for voting capitalist or socialist, so why not a case for or against constitutional change (apart from the question of whether bishops should sit in the House of Lords ex officio).
I think this must be one of the few times the Archbish is justified in speaking out: itâs a moral and spiritual issue, unlike his more usual socio-political ones.
“…the churchâs bishops tend to be conservative on sexual morals.” This is no longer the case. Most, including Welby himself, have changed their mind on the LGBT issue, have become more liberal over the past ten years, and are leading the church in that direction. They are still in favour of monogamy – maybe that’s what the author means by “conservative”?
ââŠthe churchâs bishops tend to be conservative on sexual morals.â Not “conservative” enough to kick the kiddie fiddlers out of the clergy.
Welby is a figure of comedy.
Absolutely. He is the laughably dressed front-man of an absurd religious cult.