Catholic Union Deputy Director, James Somerville-Meikle, writes:
This week saw the publication of a parliamentary report into assisted suicide. It seems that MPs on the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee are just as divided as the nation, as the report did not recommend a change in the law one way or another.
It did not even recommend another vote in Parliament on the matter; something which proponents of a change in the law had been seeking, although that will not stop some parliamentarians from trying.
At the back of the report (p. 100) is an interesting table comparing attitudes of responders to the consultation who were in favour or against a change in the law. Those who were in favour sighted personal autonomy and dignity as their main reasons. Those against sighted risk of coercion or devaluing of life of certain vulnerable groups in society.
Assisted suicide is becoming another case where the dividing line is based on whether you view what is right through the lens of individual good or common good.
In a society that seems to prize personal autonomy above anything else, arguments for the common good are getting harder to make. But we need to keep making them, and assisted suicide is one area where we might have some success.