In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, several [Anglican] bishops, priests and rabbis argued that, far from being a sin, helping terminally ill people to commit suicide should be viewed simply as enabling them to "gracefully hand back" their lives to God.

There is, they insisted "nothing sacred" about suffering in itself and no one should be "obliged to endure it".

But those who want to continue life until the last breath should be supported, they noted.

Signatories of the letter include Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who stunned the Church of England last year when he announced that he had changed his mind on the issue.

The Bishop of Buckingham, the Rt Rev Alan Wilson, and a handful of Anglican clerics were also among the signatories - despite the Church of England's official opposition to a change in the law - as was Baroness Richardson, first female President of the Methodist Conference.

Rabbi Danny Rich, chief executive of Liberal Judaism and Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain a leading figure in Reform Judaism, also supported the call.

UK MPs are due to debate an assisted dying bill tabled by Labour's Rob Marris next month.

It would allow people thought to have no more than six months to live and a "settled intention" to end their life to be allowed to be given a lethal dose of drugs on the authority of two doctors.

Most of the major religious groups in the UK have voiced opposition.

Last month, Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster said "the right to die is someone else's duty to kill".

Preaching at Lourdes, Cardinal Nichols quoted Pope Francis: "It is a great lie to try and convince people that life lived with serious illness is not worth living."

The cardinal continued: "This is why we oppose those who wish to pass laws assisting suicide, giving people the right to die when they want."

Sources

• The Telegraph
• The Tablet
• Image: The Guardian

This is what I ask myself as I read his support for assisted suicide.

He comes up with all the usual clichés used to justify turning doctors into assisted killers. Compassion, care, but worst of all, Christian love.

He abuses each and every concept.

Lord Carey also conflates a number of key issues (perhaps conveniently I am not too sure; I do not believe a man of his intelligence could be genuinely confused).

I am tempted to go through his article line by line to point out the errors, but will desist.

First, he talks about a parishioner who suffered greatly at the end of her life and died.

Lord Carey writes in Saturday's Daily Mail: "Even the most devout believers will find their faith tested by the sight of a dying person in torment — especially when modern medicine could swiftly bring the torment to a merciful end."

I am sure this is true. And I am sure - God forbid - if anything similar occurred to my family, I would be tested, perhaps to breaking point - who knows?

But the one thing I do know for sure is that I would not lie to myself and pretend killing another or assisting another to kill themselves is "medicine".

It is not.

Administering a fatal dose of poison/drugs to another is not medicine. So let's call a spade a spade.

Lord Carey says the following: "Professor John Ashton, president of the UK's Faculty Of Public Health, has urged that doctors be allowed to give dying patients a legal dose of lethal drugs if they ask for help to end their life, without any fear of prosecution. The NHS, he said, should ‘stop keeping people going at any price'.

Here Lord Carey dangerously confuses the sanctity of life with vitalism.

The sanctity of life holds that no person should intentionally take the life of another - or in this case aid another to take kill themselves.

Vitalism requires people to be kept alive at any price.

The sanctity of life and Christian medical ethics do not, and have not ever, required ‘vitalism' or the NHS to "keep people going at any price".

In the UK each and every competent person of capacity is entitled to refuse medical treatment on any grounds.

If this is being abused in NHS hospitals then it should be addressed, but the use of poor standards in socialised medicine as an excuse for turning doctors into assisted killers is reprehensible.

Lord Carey talks about the two cases of Paul Lamb and Tony Nicklinson, who argued before the Supreme Court that they should be "allowed to die," really meaning doctors should be permitted to assist them to be killed or kill themselves.

Lord Carey, however, then says at the end of the piece that "It would be outrageous if it were extended beyond the terminally ill to an ever-widening group of people, including the disabled and the depressed."

But the reason why Paul Lamb and Tony Nicklinson requested legalised assisted suicide was because they were profoundly disabled but not terminally ill.

The Assisted Dying Bill from Lord Falconer to be debated in the Lords this week could not have applied to them.

This only demonstrates that, as it is the most sympathetic cases that frequently involve disabled people who are not terminally ill, the inevitability of the extension of the law to people who are disabled, the very thing Lord Carey regards as "outrageous".

Intention is key

Next Lord Carey asserts, without a shred of evidence: "Then there are all those cases conducted in the shadows, where doctors, friends or relatives privately carry out mercy killings with a high dose of drugs."

Lord Carey also states: "After all, church leaders already understand that the use of pain medication such as morphine may occasionally have the effect of hastening death."

Yes this is true, and his wholly in line with Christian medical ethics.

Doctors and nurses are entitled to administer even large doses of morphine to ease pain, but not to kill, even if it is known, but not desired, that this may shorten the patient's life.

This is sometimes referred to as the "doctrine of double effect" and it is not, as Lord Carey seems to imply, a cheat. This is because although you may administer morphine to relieve pain, even if this shortens life, you cannot do so disproportionately.

So you cannot administer a lethal dose to someone with a year to live, or even six months to live. That would be disproportionate and demonstrates that the true intent was to kill, not to relieve pain.

Intention, in ethics, law and morality is everything.

Then he comes up with the most euphemistic line I have heard in some time.

"Why not extend this understanding further, so that the dying have a choice over how and when they wish their lives to end?"

What this really means, is why don't we permit doctors to prepare lethal doses of drugs, not to care for the patient and relieve pain, but to kill.

This is not ‘extending understanding further' - it is turning doctors from carers into killers.

That might not sound as nice, but this is what is being proposed.

Lord Carey believes it is shameful, shameful I tell you, that we do not have a "better alternative than the Zurich clinic."

His solution - have a Zurich clinic in every NHS hospital instead.

Sure, you can put it beside the abortion ward.

Fantastic.

Perhaps we could burn all the remains together and generate ourselves some energy.

Using Christian principles to support assisted suicide

The worst part of his deeply misguided piece is how he tries to use Christian principles to justify his support for the Bill.

He declares there is nothing anti-Christian about the Bill. It is fundamentally anti-Christian to assist another to kill themselves.

The commandment is very clear: Thou shalt not kill.

Shamefully, he manipulates Christ's care and compassion for lepers for his own ends.

He states: "Jesus's mission was underpinned with compassion for those suffering from the most dreadful conditions, such as leprosy. To those people, rejected by society and condemned to live apart, he brought comfort, healing and a new sense of dignity."

(Note: Lepers were complete outcasts 2,000 years ago as there was no cure for the vicious disease and it was highly contagious. Therefore they had to be "kept apart" from society. Jesus went among them to bring ‘comfort and healing' not death. He did not say, why don't we help these poor unfortunates to drown themselves in the Jordan? Sure, that would be compassionate as they can never, and I mean never, rejoin society. Funnily enough, I do not recall him ever saying that.)

But it gets worse.

Lord Carey also states the following: "Today we face a central paradox. In strictly observing the sanctity of life, the Church could now actually be promoting anguish and pain, the very opposite of a Christian message of hope."

There it is, the future accusation against anyone who refuses to push a loved one over the edge - you are "promoting his or her anguish and pain."

Do not doubt that this is the charge that will be laid on your door should you refuse to help a loved one kill themselves in a culture that permits assisted suicide.

Finally, the Christian message of hope.

Now let's be clear what Christians have hope in. We have hope in Jesus Christ who was crucified, died and was buried: he rose again on the third day.

We hope that we will rise too.

We do not "hope" that one day a doctor will load a syringe full of lethal drugs that we can then administer to ourselves. Because again, as Lord Carey should know, suicide does not go down well with God. But I suspect he believes this is negotiable with Him too.

Laura Perrins is a mum of two, former barrister, campaigns for Mothers at Home Matter and can be found @LPerrins

"Lord Carey's suicide mission," first appeared in Conservative Woman

Reprinted with permission.

Writing in England's Observer newspaper, Archbishop Tutu said laws preventing this are an affront to those affected and their families.

Calling for a "mind shift" in the right to die debate, he said he reveres the sanctity of life, but not at all costs.

The archbishop condemned as "disgraceful" the treatment of his old friend Nelson Mandela, who was kept alive through numerous painful hospitalisations.

On July 18, the UK's House of Lords will debate an assisted dying bill, which has been publicly supported by former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey.

But current Anglican primate Archbishop Justin Welby has reaffirmed his church's traditional hostility to any move that would endanger the principle of the sanctity of life.

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The video, called The Next Day, depicts French star Marion Cotillard as a dancing girl who bleeds from stigmata marks on her palms while Bowie plays a Jesus-like figure in robes fronting his band in a seedy basement bar.

"I doubt that Bowie would have the courage to use Islamic imagery — I very much doubt it," said former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey.

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