‘Religion!’

This is a red herring. Some of the leading campaigners in the British Isles against assisted suicide are not remotely religious, and the case against assisted suicide is not based on religious teaching, but on public safety and human rights.

Some of the most prominent public opponents of assisted suicide and euthanasia in the British Isles are:

• Baroness Finlay of Llandaff is one of the UK’s leading palliative care specialists, and a former head of the British Medical Association (BMA). She is non-religious.

• Lord Carlile of Berriew is an important lawyer and legal scholar, and is agnostic.

• Baroness Campbell of Surbiton is a veteran disability rights lawyer, and an atheist, and the same is true of Liz Carr, the Silent Witness actress and leader of Not Dead Yet UK.

• Kevin Yuill is author of Assisted Suicide: The Liberal, Humanist Case Against Legalisation. As his book title suggests, he is an atheist.

This is because the case against assisted suicide is not derived from ‘religion’, but reason and evidence, particularly considering the effects of assisted suicide on groups of vulnerable people, whether it be people with physical and mental disabilities, the elderly, those with physically or mental illness, or others whose situation may put them in danger of abuse.

Whilst many people who oppose assisted suicide are religious, they are motivated by concern for how it will affect constituencies of people whom their faith tradition compels them to want to help. This no more makes opposition to assisted suicide ‘religious’ than it made opposition to slavery a ‘religious’ campaign.

Believers and non-believers alike oppose assisted suicide on humane grounds.