Catholic Bishop of Shrewsbury warns on right to die law
The Catholic Bishop of Shrewsbury today spoke out against changing the law on assisted suicide, warning it would put the "weakest and most vulnerable" at risk.
Bishop Mark Davies will use his Easter address to warn against changing the law ahead of a Bill going in front of parliament next month.
Although more than three quarters of people in England and Wales say they support the idea, Bishop Davies believes it would "weaken" the protection given to those who need it most.
His comments – to be delivered at Mass in Shrewsbury Catherdral on Sunday – put him at odds with Sir Chris Woodhead, who this week spoke about his right to decide when he dies.
Sir Chris, who taught in Shrewsbury and later became chief education advisor with the former Shropshire County Council, is terminally-ill with motor neurone disease and is now unable to feed, wash or dress himself
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Bishop Davies, who leads the Diocese of Shrewsbury, said: "This Bill will seek to change long-established laws which uphold the sanctity of human life and protect some of the weakest in society.
"It is hard to understand, at a time when there has been so much public concern about the care of the most vulnerable in our hospitals and care homes, we would contemplate weakening, rather than strengthening, the legal protection offered to some of the weakest and most vulnerable."
Sir Chris, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2009, said: "I feel very strongly about those people not suffering as severely disabled people suffer who pontificate about wrongness of assisted dying. It does irritate me a hell of a lot."
A Bill to decriminalise assisting someone who is terminally ill to die will have its first reading in Parliament on May 15.
The changes sought will hand over control to the terminally ill, because the life-ending medication will be administrated by the patients themselves.
New guidelines were issued in 2010 which have seen 90 assisted deaths occur without prosecution.
But Sir Chris said he was sceptical about whether the bill will ever be passed.
He said he wanted to die in Britain, not in Switzerland where currently those looking to end their lives are able to go.
"I don't want to go all the way to Dignitas and sing Beatles songs with bearded social workers for my last five minutes. I want to listen to Beethoven's late quartets with a bottle of good Bordeaux and my nearest and dearest," he said.
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