The Archbishop of Canterbury has called the idea of ​​assisted death “dangerous” and suggested it would lead to a “slippery slope” where more people would feel forced to medically end their lives.

The head of the Church of England was speaking to the BBC ahead of the first reading in Parliament of a bill that would give terminally ill people in England and Wales the right to end their lives.

Archbishop Welby spoke of being unperturbed by the fact that opinion polls show that, broadly speaking, the Church of England is completely out of sync with the public on this issue.

Secular groups in Britain have long demanded that religion be removed from the aided final debate and even that senior bishops lose the right to sit in the House of Lords where they can vote on the matter. .

“As a priest for 30 years I have sat with people at their bedsides. And people have said, ‘I want my mother, I want my daughter, I want my brother gone because it’s so horrible,'” the Archbishop of Canterbury said.

Justin Welby said he did not want people to feel guilty for having such thoughts, adding that as a teenager he sometimes had similar thoughts about his father in the last years of his life. Were.

He said, “What I’m saying is that introducing this law opens the way for it to be expanded so that people who are not in that situation (are terminally ill) are asking for it, or pushing for it.” “Feeling.”

The archbishop also mentioned the death of his 93-year-old mother Jane last year and said he had felt as if she was a “burden”. He said he worries how many other people will be forced to ask to die if he feels the same way.

Archbishop Welby said that in his lifetime he had seen a marked decline in the idea that “everyone, no matter how useful they are, is of equal value to society”, adding that the disabled, the sick and the elderly were often treated in this way. Ignored has consequences. On whether they can have access to assisted death.

His predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord George Carey, is one of the most prominent Anglican voices in support of legalizing assisted death.

But the last time there was a vote on assisted dying at General Synod in 2022, only 7% of the Church of England’s national assembly said they supported a change in the law.

In comparison, opinion polls conducted in recent years in the UK have regularly indicated support for legalizing assisted dying with majorities recorded in the 60–75% range.

“There will be people who will look at this and say the church is completely out of touch, that they completely disagree with us, and say they’re not going to get closer to the church, but we don’t operate on the basis of opinion polls. Are, said the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Last week Cardinal Vincent Nicholls, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, urged Catholics to write to their MPs expressing their opposition to assisted dying.

But it is the Church of England that also has the privilege of being the “established church” in England, and it is the 26 Church of England bishops and archbishops who automatically receive seats in the House of Lords and vote on legislation.

Assisted dying has already been one of the main issues, where for secular groups, presence in parliament and influence on state affairs has been brought into question.

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