Archbishop of Armagh rejects Lord Carey’s support of assisted dying
The Primate of the Church of Ireland has spoken out against a former Archbishop of Canterbury’s support for ‘assisted dying’.
Archbishop of Armagh, The Most Revd Richard Clarke, said that he found Lord Carey’s comments in support of allowing the terminally ill to have help to end their own lives “perplexing”.
Last month, Lord Carey surprised many when he said he had changed his mind and was “less certain of my opposition to the right to die”. Writing in the Daily Mail, he said that he would support a bill brought forward by former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer which would allow mentally–capable adults with less than six months to live to get help to end their lives.
Lord Falconer’s Bill passed its first reading in the House of Lords last month.
Writing in The Belfast News Letter on Friday 8 August, Archbishop Clarke, whose wife died from cancer five years ago, said that support for helping the terminally ill to end their lives was neither in keeping with Christian teaching nor even some secular understandings of the sanctity of life.
The Most Revd Clarke said: “One of the most perplexing aspects of the intervention of a former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, into the debate in England on the side of assisted dying was that a fundamental Christian tenet – that our life on earth is not our property to do with as we choose – appeared to have eluded him entirely.
“Much therefore depends on how we understand the significance of earthly life.
“If life is simply a personal commodity…then life is disposable, entirely at the will of the individual ‘possessor’. This is clearly not the Christian perspective and, even for the non–believer, it is not an automatic understanding of the significance of life.”
Available to read online: Archbishop Clarke’s article for The News Letter – Are we helping to die or helping to live?