This article is a slightly abridged version of Bishop Michael’s Presidential Address to July 2025’s Diocesan Synod. As Parliament resumed on 1 September after summer recess,, it is timely to revisit this issue now before the the Bills continue their Parliamentary journey and with the Second Reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill imminent on 12 September.
Two Bills await scrutiny in the House of Lords: The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, providing for ‘assisted dying’ in some circumstances, and the Crime and Policing Bill, removing criminal liability from women who end their own pregnancies.
Both Bills affect vulnerable groups, who have had a bad few weeks what with these two Bills plus the debate over meaningful yet cost-effective support for people with disabilities. Vulnerable people are Christians’ first call for compassion and advocacy, but here I am specifically addressing beginning and ending of life issues.
Increasingly, there are concerns being expressed about the end of life Bill. The Third Reading majority of 23 in a (free) vote in the Commons was significantly lower than the Second Reading majority of 55.
Some of those concerns are shared widely. Following the abortion decriminalisation vote, the Bishop of London helpfully pointed out that, ‘Women suffering from coercion, or those who are victims of sexual or domestic abuse, would be the most vulnerable to the proposed change.’ Paradoxically, making those women free from legal sanction could make them more at risk.
In the case of assisted suicide, vulnerable people could, in their last months, feel themselves to be a waste of bed-space or a financial burden on their families, and then avail themselves of this way out. Over the past few weeks, several people who have been in situations of medical, psychological or social vulnerability have written to me to describe thoughts exactly like this. Sadly, in some cases there could be temptations for overburdened hospital administrators, or for fatigued families, to reinforce those inward feelings by their outward attitudes or words, so that people really do end up feeling coerced. The statutory inquiry into the COVID pandemic has recently heard evidence of the effective abandonment of residents of care homes to the ravages of a deadly disease because they were seen as more expendable than others. It is also hard to believe that there will not, over the years, be a relaxation of restrictions on who may avail themselves of assisted dying procedures. That has been the consistent experience of other jurisdictions.
As a Christian, I believe in the God-given sanctity of every human life, resting on the biblical truth that we are made in the image and likeness of our Creator. To take away God’s gift of life is to choose to go against God’s good purposes, whatever might be the circumstances in which that happens. That immediately raises a host of complex questions, particularly at the beginning of life. What if the life of a woman is endangered by a pregnancy, might not the imperative to save life point to abortion as the lesser of two evils? At what point does an incipient life become truly a human being and who has responsibility for the unborn life until that point? These complexities are addressed in this Church of England statement on abortion:
The Church of England combines principled opposition to abortion with a recognition that there can be strictly limited conditions under which it may be morally preferable to any available alternative. This is based on our view that the foetus is a human life with the potential to develop relationships, think, pray, choose and love. Women facing unwanted pregnancies realise the gravity of the decision they face: all abortions are tragedies, since they entail judging one individual’s welfare against that of another (even if one is, as yet, unborn). Every possible support, especially by church members, needs to be given to those who are pregnant in difficult circumstances and care, support and compassion must be shown to all, whether or not they continue with their pregnancy.
At the other end of life, it is sometimes argued that no clear distinction can be made in borderline cases between assisting somebody to die, on the one hand, and on the other hand administering palliative drugs for pain control that will hasten the end of their life, or stopping intrusive medical interventions that artificially sustain a vegetative state. Many of us will have experienced issues like these in the dying days or hours of those we love. They can be bitterly difficult to decide. Nevertheless, there is a world of difference between acting to alleviate suffering in someone’s dying hours and purposefully seeking to bring about death. Intentionality matters.
At the beginning and the ending of life, and at every point in between, as a Christian I affirm in wonder and gratitude that all human lives belong to God, and that every human life is to be treated with reverence and awe as an image of his glory and a temple of his spirit. Many people of other faiths or beliefs would share in that view, even if expressed in different language. In public as in private we must be free to bear witness to our strongest convictions; it is chilling to hear calls to exclude people from bringing their religiously grounded values to the debate because they are not ‘neutral.’ Faith or belief is not like a coat to be taken off and left at the door as we enter into the house of public debate.
Finally, at the most practical and immediate level, the Assisted Dying Bill currently before Parliament is good neither in content nor timing. The safeguards it stipulates are viewed by many as woefully inadequate and it seems to me quite extraordinary to be proposing a fully-funded suicide service when palliative care is dramatically under-resourced often left reliant on charitable resources, and when the NHS in general is under such strain.
So, the Lords will now engage with the Bill. Please pray for all members of the House of Lords, and particularly for the bishops who sit there, as we deliberate. Please also pray for debate about disabled people’s provision. Every day the chamber begins its business with prayers led by one of the bishops. On the last day of each week these include Psalm 121. I put my hope in the final words of that psalm: ‘The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and for evermore.’
+Michael
Rt Revd Dr Michael Ipgrave OBE
Bishop of Lichfield