Pulse
16 Feb 2026
In October 2024, a proposal was made in the UK Parliament that terminally ill adults in England and Wales should be allowed to end their lives with the help of their physicians. This proposal has sparked an emotional debate.
According to Kim Leadbeater, the lawmaker from Britain’s governing Labour Party, who is one of the architects of this bill, the current law under which assisted suicide is punishable by up to 14 years in jail, is outdated. Public opinion on this issue, she adds, has shifted in favour of the legalisation of assisted dying.
If the bill is passed the UK will join a number of countries in Europe where the practice in one form or another is legal. They include Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany and Spain – where euthanasia is legal.
Countries such as Austria, Finland and Norway have legalised passive euthanasia which allows for certain treatments to be either withheld or withdrawn. While Switzerland has not legalised euthanasia, it has, since 1942, legalised assisted suicide where patients are given the means to end their life.
Ethical debates on euthanasia and assisted suicide (or dying) have been had for many years, and are still ongoing. Proponents of the practice have defended it from many different angles, and though there are permutations and variations these arguments can be summarised without much difficulty.
One of the most prominent arguments is the autonomy of the patient, which is often wedded to discourse about human rights. Another argument in favour of the practice is that it is possible to regulate it such that it will not be abused.
Much of the discussion on the legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide is also based on the utilitarian calculus which states that allowing people who are suffering from certain illnesses to take their own lives serves the greater good in our resource-scarce world.
For Christians, however, the most compelling argument is arguably that of compassion. Euthanasia and assisted dying are deemed compassionate because it relieves the patient who is afflicted with an illness for which there is no cure of unbearable suffering.
This is the argument that the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, commandeered to urge the bishops of the Church of England to support the proposed bill. Speaking to the Guardian, Lord Carey said that the 26 Bishops should ‘be on the side of those who … wanted a dignified, compassionate end to their lives’.
In addition, Carey, who was the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury until his retirement in 2002, said that he backs Leadbeater’s bill to legalise assisted dying ‘because it is necessary, compassionate and principled’. Carey’s view on this issue is surprising because he is often regarded as an evangelical churchman and theologian.
Before discussing the fundamental flaws of Carey’s argument, the nomenclature ‘assisted dying’ which is fast replacing older descriptors such as ‘euthanasia’ and ‘assisted suicide’ deserves some scrutiny and comment.
There is something gravely misleading – one could say, deceptively misleading – about the expression ‘assisted dying’. ‘Assisted dying’ is a euphemism that is employed to make the practice of prematurely causing the death of a patient look less offensive, more acceptable, and, even, one might add, noble.
However, it is important not to miss what the expression ‘assisted dying’ tries to conceal. To hasten the death of someone – even a dying patient – either by acts of omission or commission, to prematurely cause his death, is to kill him.
Assisted dying must therefore be seen for what it truly is. It is the deliberate act of terminating the life of the patient. The descriptor is broad enough to include euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
Returning to the argument in its favour based on compassion, the problem with this approach is that by privileging one argument, it has willy-nilly pushed the others into the background.
One important consideration for Christian ethics is of course the Scriptural teaching concerning the sanctity of human life (Genesis 1:27). The life of the human being must be valued and protected because the human being is created in the image and likeness of its Creator.
It is for this reason that the Church has categorically rejected the justification of euthanasia on the basis of compassion. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church has clearly stated: ‘Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable’.
Once the sanctity of the life of the human being is returned to the centre of ethics, our idea of what constitutes human dignity becomes fuller and more robust.
Many proponents of assisted dying argue that the practice is concerned about the dignity of the terminally ill patient. Carey also holds this perspective when he speaks of a dignified way to end the life of a terminally ill patient.
But this view of dignity, which some theologians and ethicists termed as ‘functional dignity’, if taken on its own, fails to take into consideration the full understanding of dignity associated with the Christian tradition.
Based on the fundamental truth that human lives are sacred, that they are a gift from God to creatures he has created in his image, the Christian tradition emphasises an ontological dignity to which functional dignity must be subordinated. Ontological dignity has to do with the dignity which God bestows and which every human being possesses on the basis of the kind of creatures God has made them to be: that is, bearers of his divine image.
Functional dignity – which has to do with certain circumstances and the quality of life of the patient – must be subordinated to the more basic dignity which all human beings possess, and which assisted dying clearly violates.
Not only has the focus on compassion to the neglect of other considerations such as the sanctity of human life led to an adulterated and impoverished understanding of dignity, it has also distorted the understanding of compassion itself.
The Latin compassio, it must be emphatically pointed out, means ‘to suffer with’. Compassion has to do with lovingly and caringly accompanying the suffering patient who is at the end of his life.
In Christian medical ethics, compassion towards terminally ill patients is expressed supremely in the provision of palliative care, which seeks not only to alleviate their suffering but to also provide spiritual support.
Dame Cicely Mary Strode Saunders, the eminent nurse, social worker and author has brilliantly captured the essence of palliative care when she said: ‘You matter because you are you, and you matter to the last moment of your life. We will do all that we can not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die.’
At the hands of the proponents of assisted dying, compassion, instead of having to do with accompanying the suffering patient, becomes ending that suffering by terminating the life of the sufferer. This is surely a grave distortion of compassio.
But perhaps the justification of assisted dying based on compassion conceals a deeper and more ‘unsavoury’ sentiment or concern. Perhaps it is not about our compassion for the suffering patient, but about our desire not to be burdened by him.
With his usual perceptiveness, the late Pope John Paul II brought this out in his important encyclical Evangelium Vitae where he writes: ‘true compassion leads to sharing another’s pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear’ (italics mine).
Even if this is in some ways true, then the argument for assisted dying on the grounds of compassion is in fact an evasion of compassion, since it is about getting rid of the sufferer instead of journeying with him.
Dr Roland Chia is Chew Hock Hin Professor at Trinity Theological College (Singapore) and Theological and Research Advisor of the Ethos Institute for Public Christianity.