It is remarkable that in the eloquent letter signed by Justin Welby and other faith leaders (The Big Issue) the only reference to religion is at the beginning where attention is, very properly, called to the great works of compassion and caring carried out by religious groups.
But compassion is not confined to such groups. I can understand why the archbishop did not overtly derive his moral beliefs from sacred texts. He and the other signatories well understand that such reliance on doctrine convinces only those who share the religion in question. But if the basis of the argument is purely moral, and not dogmatic, why should it have more weight than a secular argument that leads to the opposite conclusion?
It would surely be more honest if those who believe that their religion forbids assisting the terminally ill to die were simply to say so.
Mary Warnock
London SE6
Justin Welby’s cri de coeur about the evils of the assisted dying bill is cloaked in social concern, but at its core is standard religious authoritarianism: we should all be doing what he and his fellow churchgoers think we should be doing. The current law arrogantly denies the rest of us the right to decide on perhaps the most intimate decision in our lives: whether to continue it in dire circumstances. And this could quite legitimately involve considerations about how my condition could blight the lives of those I love. Enacting the bill would not have restrained the archbishop from following his deeply held moral beliefs about his own life. It would have just granted me the right to do the same.
Dr Christopher Burke
Healey, Greater Manchester
The religious leaders show little sympathy or understanding for those of us who are terminally ill. Indeed, they remind me of the priest, in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37), who passed by on the other side: they rehearse a series of inaccurate, irrelevant and spurious reasons why they should not intervene to give us the help, which we desperately need, to end our lives painlessly, in dignity and at a time and place of our choosing.
Modern medicine has extended the life (against the will of God?) of hundreds of thousands of us, often for several decades, and we are deeply grateful for that extension; however, there are biological, medical and financial limits to what medicine can achieve. More than 80% of people support assisted dying and that figure is probably much higher among those of us who are terminally ill.
Roy Snaydon
Swansea
I was shocked by Justin Welby’s arrogance. My 79-year-old brother, with pernicious anaemia, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, brain damage from an assault, spastic paralysis of two limbs and missing areas of vision, was told that he had cancer encroaching his kidney.
He said it was too much and that he wished neither more investigations nor treatment. His wife and the physician who had given him the news supported him.
Would the archbishop have wanted to persuade him that his life was “worth protecting”, “worth honouring”, “worth fighting for”?
Peter Bruggen
London
Leaders of faith “believe that the best response to individuals’ end-of-life concerns lies in ensuring that all receive compassionate, high-quality palliative care”. Of course. But given the appalling lack of it, due to shortage of quality carers and endemic underfunding, is there a shred of evidence that this worthy aspiration is likely to be achieved in the foreseeable future?
David Buckingham
Leamington Spa
