Euthanasia: A Christian Doctor’s Perspective

The media furore over euthanasia during the last few days has made one thing abundantly clear. Sir Terry Pratchett’s documentary on assisted dying only showed us one side of the debate.

Both disability groups and Christian ones declared that other views needed to be heard. I have to agree. My medical background and Christian convictions both push me to think about the other side of the story.

A key question for me is: “How does a change in law affect the most weak and vulnerable?”

My medical oaths tell me to do no harm. My Christian values tell me to “help the weak” (1 Thessalonians 5 v 14).

And my experience tells me that hard cases, like the ones that make it onto TV documentaries, make bad law.

Two examples illustrate the point. First, what starts as a right to die sometimes seems to turn into a duty to die. For example in Oregon, where euthanasia is legal, the percentage of people taking their lives who felt a burden on their families rose 50% in three years between 1998 and 2000. Disability campaigners are rightly concerned that the most weak may begin to feel they are obligated to end their life.

Secondly, such legislation would be intended to authorise people dying because some thought it was right; but it might lead to people being killed when we would all agree it was wrong.

I remember only too well reading the case of Philip Sutorius, a GP who helped an 86 year old woman to die. He said that she was suffering “unbearably”. His reasons? She had said that she was obsessed with getting older, and thought her existence was hopeless.

I wonder if, just like traffic lights rightly limit our freedom to protect other drivers, so keeping the law as it is limits our freedoms for the benefit of all.

I wonder, too, if this whole debate distracts from the great work of the hospice movement. Dame Cicely Saunders, a Christian woman, set up St Christopher’s Hospice to give weak and vulnerable patients the care, pain relief and comfort that deserve. She recognised that for the Christian our dignity isn’t conditional on our productivity, but intrinsic to our humanity.

Perhaps our “Big Society” would do well to champion those hard-working servants in hospice care. They have certainly taught me over the years to work hard to show sick people the respect that society so often seems to decide in advance that they cannot have.

Jason is a vicar and a doctor with a particular interest in medical ethics and has worked for the British Medical Journal.