LEARN (2/2) - Lament - Lead
Learn 2/2: the facts
In the first article we reviewed the fundamentals of what the Bible has to say: namely that all human life is precious to God who made us all in his image; that life begins at conception; that life is not for us to take and not for us to impose less or more value on; that God has a particular care for the vulnerable and calls the Christian to care, protect and bear burdens alongside the unborn, pregnant and suicidal.
So what are the specifics of the current situation? We need to learn what is taking place so that we can then apply our theological understanding to the specific context and situation.
Abortion
On 17 June, after just 46 minutes of debate, MPs backed legislation to decriminalise abortion: the biggest change since the 1967 Abortion Act. A woman cannot now be prosecuted for having an illegal abortion. The legal limit of 24 weeks (10 weeks for using medication at home) is still in place. The legal grounds for abortion, such as the risk to the woman's life or health, or risk of abnormalities in the fetus, also remains. Medical professionals would still be prosecuted for assisting an illegal abortion.
Nonetheless, the reality is that a woman can abort her baby at any point, for any reason up to and even during birth. If you cannot be prosecuted then it is effectively legalised.
But surely if a woman is desperate or vulnerable enough to feel the need to abort a pregnancy after 24 weeks then we should be acting with compassion, not criminalising them? So goes the argument. This law could not be any less compassionate. It means that such a woman would have to have an abortion at home - with all the risks and trauma that would involve.
Tragically 1/3 pregnancies already end in abortion. In 2022, there were 251,377 abortions for women resident in England and Wales, which is the highest number since the Abortion Act was introduced. This represents a 17% increase compared to the previous year.
This new law harms women as well as their babies. More women will suffer deep regret and worse. Decriminalization doesn’t address any of the diverse reasons many women choose abortion, including poverty, absent fathers, peer pressure, and anxiety that sometimes accompanies pregnancy.
Both the women AND the baby are of equal and enormous value. It is a nonsense to impose arbitrary, subjective definitions on the viability of life or on the definition of the baby according to whether it is wanted or not. We have a growing movement to make miscarriage a far less painful and lonely experience for mothers and fathers. Having pastored people through this heartache, I fully support that. But we now have the situation where an 18 week old baby in gestation who passes away through a miscarriage is a reason for mourning and grief IF it is wanted by the parents. But if it is not, then it becomes a fetus to be disposed of in the name of the superior rights of the mother and the idol of bodily autonomy.
My sense is we do instinctively know that an unborn child, is just that. As this recent and tragic headline in the BBC makes clear (just two weeks after the abortion legislation) we know it is a child that has been killed https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9qxneddqn2o
Assisted suicide
In simple terms the “Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life)” Bill gives mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales, who have six months or less left to live, the right to choose to end their lives with medical assistance. Under the bill, there are four main criteria that must be met before a terminally ill person can, on request, be assisted to end their own life. The person must:
have capacity “to make a decision to end their own life” (with capacity to be read in accordance with the Mental Capacity Act 2005);
be aged 18 or over;
be ordinarily resident in England and Wales, and have been ordinarily resident there for at least 12 months, and
be registered as a patient with a GP practice in England or Wales.
A person is “terminally ill” if they have an inevitably progressive illness or disease that cannot be reversed by treatment. The person must also reasonably be expected to die within six months. A person must not be considered as terminally ill only because they are a person with a disability or mental disorder (or both). For a more detailed explanation of the specifics, safeguards and so on read this article from communitycare.org.uk.
Whilst one can only imagine the suffering, fear and pain of such people I find these 12 reasons very persuasive as to why this bill should continue to be opposed. This is a summary from a longer article from Christian Concern.
1. Legalising assisted suicide implies that some people are ‘better off dead’
Actress, broadcaster, and disability rights activist Liz Carr produced a BBC documentary, Better Off Dead showing how many people in society society already frequently speak to disabled people in ways that imply they would be ‘better off dead’.
2. Legalising assisted suicide will put pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives (a view held by Health Secretary Wes Streeting)
3. Safeguards on assisted suicide do not hold
In 2022, Canadian Paralympian and armed forces veteran Christine Gauthier requested a new wheelchair ramp to her house. She was instead asked if she had ever considered Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). Other veterans seeking support for their PTSD have also been offered MAiD unprompted.
4. Judges cannot be trusted to protect life
Sudiksha Thirumalesh was 19 years old and had been determined by experts to be of sound mind. Sudiksha stated clearly that she “wanted to die trying to live” rather than have life-sustaining treatment removed from her. The Court of Protection declared that she nevertheless lacked mental capacity to make decisions about her treatment, while doctors argued that it was in her best interests for life sustaining treatment to be removed.
5. Autonomy is no justification for legalising assisted suicide
6. People change their minds
Campaigner Nikki Kenward tells of previously supporting assisted suicide and then contracting a serious illness which left her bedridden and paralysed. Had the law allowed assisted suicide she believes she would have been killed. She is now a powerful advocate against changing the law. We need to listen to stories like this. Very often the fear is worse than the reality. Assisting suicide is a one-way street.
7. The patient-doctor relationship is compromised
8. Medics do not support legalising assisted suicide
Related to this, recent polling shows that 80% of palliative care physicians are opposed to a change in the law. These are the doctors with the most experience of end of life care, whose voice should be loudest in this debate.
9. Numbers of suicides increase
In Australia, research published last year found that legalising assisted suicide failed to reduce rates of ‘unassisted’ suicide in the State of Victoria. In fact, since the law came into force, suicide among older people in Victoria has increased by more than 50%. Far from reducing ‘unassisted’ suicide rates, legalising assisted suicide leads to increased suicides overall.
10. Assisted suicide is against all major codes of ethics
The Hippocratic Oath taken by physicians for centuries promises: “Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course.”
11. Legalising assisted suicide devalues human life
12. End-of-life diagnoses are not reliable
Professor John Wyatt, a Christian, who worked as an NHS consultant for more than 20 years, says: “there were many times when I and my colleagues were hopelessly inaccurate in predicting how many months or years a person had to live. In reality it is not uncommon for a person who is diagnosed with a ‘terminal illness’ to live on for years or to die within days. Diagnostic errors, spontaneous remission, new treatments, random events, all conspire to make the prediction of death a foolhardy business.”