By Jerry Li

The UK House of Commons is voting on the Assisted Dying Bill, also referred to as the Assisted Suicide Bill today. The bill has caused something of a moral crisis in Parliament in that it seeks to legalise the medical administration of lethal drugs to patients diagnosed with a terminal illness. Its sponsor, Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, argues that this would give people at the end of their lives a choice to relieve their suffering, while critics, including many medical professionals, claim that the bill lack safeguards to protect the most vulnerable in society.

On a matter as weighty as life and death, even the sardonic Starmer is obliged to give MPs a free vote. This regroups MPs into previously unthinkable coalitions on a national debate, with social conservative Danny Kruger MP praising Corbynist left-winger Diane Abbott MP, and Tory stalwart Kit Malthouse MP closing ranks with arch-Progressivist Lord Charlie Falconer of Thoroton. The issue is also one that is of great concern to faith groups, with interventions raised by the Anglican Bishop of London, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, the Chief Rabbi, and various Muslim leaders.

Prominent members of the Government in relevant departments such as Shabana Mahmood, the Lord Chancellor, and Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, have voiced grave concerns around the bill’s provisions and implications. Yet when the former, Britain’s most senior practicing Muslim, voiced her opinion, Lord Falconer dismissed the legitimacy of her opinion and her right to contribute to the debate because of her stated beliefs on the sanctity of life. 

Likewise, when Kruger, a leading opponent of the bill, spoke eloquently on his ethical concerns, the Guardian Newspaperchose to publish a story ostensibly focused on vague and suggestive allegations relating to undeclared contributions from ‘evangelical groups’ to Kruger’s anti-assisted suicide caucus All Party Parliamentary Group on Dying Well. Of course, the apparent intention of the story is to expose Kruger’s Evangelical faith and the support he and his cause receive from Christian groups. The insinuation is that religious groups and individuals ought not exert influence on public policy, and if they do, it would be for the best that they not influence the public on an area in which their religion has anything to say. 

A sort of conflict of interest is being asserted wherein persons holding religious convictions ought not only to declare, but also to recuse themselves from public discourse if they are at all influenced by their religious belief. 

At first inspection, this appears to be a case for the separation of church and state which, while not officially enshrined in Britain, is a standard feature of discourse on secularism. However, what is particularly unsettling about Lord Falconer’s comments is not only that he questions the right of religious organisations to contribute to the body politic, but also the implication that religious individuals should be excluded from important discussions on matters of public morality and their implications for law and policy. 

To expand on this logic, religious conviction effectively is interpreted by secular progressivists like Charlie Falconer as a form of mental frailty which limits and compromises the faculties of a decision-maker. Such faulty reasoning undermines religious freedom by making religion a disqualifying factor for those engaging in the public square. In order to make rational decisions, it is implied that politicians need to be either areligious or in an areligious frame of mind, for having a faith is no more than an irrational—indeed lamentable—affliction which biases and distorts an otherwise rational mind. Such a posture makes secularism the default position.

The designation of religion as inherently superstitious, unreasonable, and narrow negates the long tradition of Christian concern for the poor and the enslaved in England. William Wilberforce was expressly motivated by his Evangelical Christianity in his abolitionist campaign, and William Gladstone was driven by his faith in both his domestic and foreign policy. Their Christian conviction, unusually devout for their time, served to emphasise to them concerns to which their contemporaries were oblivious, and as such, gave rise to positive social reforms. 

Contrary to the impression given by Lord Falconer, discourse on public policy is usually enhanced by contributions from religious leaders and people of faith, many of whom, like the Chief Rabbi in this instance, have contemplated and had extensive experience on questions of life and death. Dismissing the value of such interventions on the grounds of the audacity of his faith serves to expose the bigotry of areligious secularists against people of faith. It would also do immeasurable harm to the common good if any wisdom ‘tainted’ by the transcendent were to be excluded from public deliberation.

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Jerry Li is a Theology MA Student at Durham University and President of the Durham Union Society, one of the three historic debating societies in the UK.