The proposed introduction of assisted dying in Guernsey has been slammed by the Bishop of Portsmouth, Philip Egan, whose diocese includes the island.
Legislators there will vote for the first time on a bill in May which, if eventually introduced, would make Guernsey the first part of the British Isles to allow assisted suicide.
In a pastoral letter read out in all Guernsey parishes on Palm Sunday, Bishop Egan appealed to Catholics to mobilise “to overturn this grim proposal.” Ahead of the letter, Bishop Egan took to Twitter: “Let’s pray for the people of Guernsey, that they along with their doctors and other civilised people will robustly reject the push from secularists and liberals for assisted suicide and death clinics.” In a second tweet he wrote: “Looks like we’ll have a fight on our hands against the secularists: Let us pray for wisdom and strength.”
The island’s chief minister, Gavin St Pier, is backing the bill and told The Tablet it is aimed at people who are terminally ill, mentally competent and have less than six months to live. In response to Bishop Egan’s criticisms, he said: ”It isn’t sufficient to deny the rights and opportunities to others to do this, should they wish. It’s a matter of personal choice for those who have capacity.” He dismissed the warning that introducing assisted dying would be the thin end of the wedge as “trite” and said the measure would reflect changes in society.
The Guernsey government website outlines the issues politicians are being asked to consider, including “legal and professional obstacles,” whether the individual would have to be terminally ill, whether the individual “shall physically administer the final act to themselves or whether it shall be permitted for others to assist,” whether they would have to be locally resident, what measures are required to “protect the vulnerable and prevent abuse,” the numbers and roles of doctors and whether they would be permitted to have any conscientious objection and the age someone would have to be to seek assisted dying.
Guernsey’s parliament will decide in May whether to open up the issue to an 18-month consultation period. In his letter, Bishop Egan described the proposed legislation as “fundamentally subversive, horrific and dangerous, however well-intentioned.” He said assisted suicide is “fundamentally incompatible with a doctor’s role as healer, ” adding: “It would be an intolerable and utterly immoral demand to ask medical staff, doctors and nurses, dedicated to preserving life, to extinguish the life of another human person.”
He also warned it would be impossible to control once it was introduced: “Assisting someone to die prematurely or assisting someone to commit suicide, even when they earnestly request it, can never ever be a compassionate action,” he said. “It is a grave sin.”
For decades, British campaigners for assisted suicide have failed to change the law through a series of Bills introduced in Parliament. However, as a British Crown dependency, rather than an integral part of the UK, Guernsey sits outside the jurisdiction of the Westminster-based Parliament and has the power to make its own laws.
PICTURE: Undated stock photograph of hospital ©PA
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