The Dean of Guernsey, the Very Revd Tim Barker, told The Tablet this week he was enormously concerned that elected representatives there were being asked to make a decision on the introduction of assisted dying, before knowing the details of how such a scheme would work.
Mr Barker spoke out ahead of a vote in principle on the matter in the island’s parliament. “There’s a sense in which a decision is being made before a lot of work has been done,” he said, adding that no scientific opinion poll had yet been conducted.
His overriding concern was that “however tightly a law is drawn, there is always a pressure to push boundaries; the evidence in other jurisdictions is that even a tight law becomes broader, once assisted dying becomes possible.”
The island’s chief minister, Gavin St Pier, is proposing a bill that would allow terminally ill people to end their lives with the help of a doctor. This would make Guernsey the only place in the British Isles to legalise assisted dying. A vote in favour of the legislation, in principle, would be followed by a consultation period of at least 18 months, to work out eligibility details and safeguards.
In April more than 50 church leaders on Guernsey united to write an open letter opposing the move. They warned of the “danger” of such a measure, saying it would pose a threat to the elderly, those with disabilities and other vulnerable people. Bishop Philip Egan, whose Portsmouth diocese incorporates Guernsey (inset, the island’s coat of arms) in a pastoral letter read out on Palm Sunday, described the proposed legislation as “fundamentally subversive, horrific and dangerous”. He said that assisted suicide is “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 that 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.
His assertion was echoed by Mr Barker, who said: “The deliberate taking of life is such a crucial change in the whole way in which society operates, linked to the ethical and moral compass of society – which transcends religious and other differences. It is an essential characteristic of being human that we do not take life.” He added that there is real concern by the inhabitants of the island that the way the issue is being reported by the UK press is damaging the image of Guernsey.
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