The Leadbeater bill (for assisted suicide) currently going through Parliament presents a clear and present danger to vulnerable people. The bill proposes to make assisted suicide available for those with six months or less to live. Some have pointed out that doctors are terrible at predicting life expectancy, with one recent study showing 20 per cent of those supposed to be dead in six months were alive three years later.
The use of the courts to expand the scope of the legislation will begin immediately. I can hear the cries of Discrimination! by those with a terminal illness who are deemed to have more than six months. And then by those with unbearable suffering and no terminal illness, This is unfair and against our human rights! This almost certain expansion of the scope is not the focus here. Rather, we focus on the unworkability of the alleged safeguards in the legislation.
Our instinct as Christians is to oppose the bill because we know every human being is made in the image of God and therefore worthy of honour and protection. God’s image is not restricted to some part of our humanness, such as our intellect, for example. It is total. We are image bearers just by being human, however damaged we may be. Sadly, this instinctive argument is unlikely to wash with most MPs. But there is another thread of relevant biblical teaching which is likely to have more resonance: the emphasis in Scripture of our duty to care for the vulnerable (Deuteronomy 10:18, 24:19-21; Ezekiel 16:49). And the weakest and most vulnerable in our society are in real danger from this legislation.
