phone: 01970-880-416                                                                                                                               4 Cefn Melindwr
mobile: 07974-113-283                                                                                                                                     Capel Bangor
e-mail: jrl@aber.ac.uk                                                                                                                                      Aberystwyth
website: www.johnling.co.uk                                                                                                                             SY23 3LS.

                                                                                                                                                                      14 July 2014.

The Lord Elystan-Morgan
The House of Lords
Westminster
London
SW1A 0PW.

Dear Lord Elystan-Morgan,

Assisted Dying Bill
As you are aware, the House of Lords is to vote this week on the above Bill.

I am deeply concerned about the thrust of this Bill – the proposed legalisation of assisted suicide is a step too far.  Allow me to make four points:

1]  its introduction would change the face of medicine for ever – the historic patient-doctor relationship of trust and respect would collapse.  Doctors as life terminators is an eerie prospect.

2]  if legalised, it would be subject to mission creep – the proposed limited measures would inevitably be challenged and widened. Some of the Bill’s proponents will not be satisfied with assisted suicide, they will press for full-blown euthanasia.

3]  this push for assisted suicide is obtuse and misguided when palliative care is making such enormous strides in caring for the physical, mental and spiritual needs of those at the end of life.

4]  on this subject, I would believe Baroness Finlay of Llandaff rather than Lord Carey of Clifton.

I have followed the global debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide for many years – indeed, I have even written a book on the issues – and I am convinced that the majority of jurisdictions which have considered and then rejected legalisation have done so for two main reasons.  First, it is impossible to write on a piece of paper precise criteria for eligibility.  Second, it is impossible to define sufficient safeguards to protect the vulnerable.  The Suicide Act 1961 still serves us well.

I would therefore urge you to vote against Lord Falconer of Thoroton’s Bill.

Yours sincerely,

Dr John R. Ling.

phone: 01970-880-416                                                                                                                               4 Cefn Melindwr
mobile: 07974-113-283                                                                                                                                     Capel Bangor
e-mail: jrl@aber.ac.uk                                                                                                                                      Aberystwyth
website: www.johnling.co.uk                                                                                                                             SY23 3LS.

                                                                                                                                                                      14 July 2014.

The Rt. Hon. The Lord Carey
The House of Lords
Westminster
London
SW1A 0PW.

Dear Lord Carey,

Assisted Dying Bill
I was profoundly disappointed, disheartened and disenchanted to read of your apparent change of heart concerning the above Bill.

Assisted suicide is the very antithesis of good medicine.  For over 2,000 years the ethics and practice of good medicine have been underpinned by the Hippocratic Oath and the Judaeo-Christian doctrines.  The former instructs doctors to ‘first, do no harm’ and specifically forbids euthanasia, while the latter’s Sixth Commandment rules out the taking of innocent human life and its Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12) promotes care for all.

I fear that you have become taken up with the spirit of this age.  Are you not concerned to abrogate the tenets of historic, orthodox, biblical Christianity?  Where is your countercultural Christian concern?  Do you no longer believe that there are any moral absolutes?  Do you suppose that legalising assisted suicide will not eventually lead to full-blown euthanasia?  Do you not fear that we are sliding towards a cheap and cheaper view of human life?

I am therefore alarmed that you have chosen to use your position, as an influential churchman, to promote this misguided and unnecessary Bill.

I would urge you to think again and vote against this Bill at Second Reading.