The Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster and the Chief Rabbi, in a letter to the Times ahead of yesterday's debate in the House of Lords, put forward three kinds of argument against legalizing assisted suicide.
(1) Human life is sacred, and it is wrong 'to kill, or assist in the killing, of an innocent human being'.
(2) Vulnerable people could find themselves under pressure 'to ask for an early death', the right to die becoming a grim duty to do so.
(3) This is a matter for palliative care - to relieve pain and suffering and 'ensur[e] the dignity of those nearing death'.
I want to comment on the relationship between the first argument and the second and third ones, without attempting to resolve the issue. For if the first argument stands unqualified, then the second and third are beside the point. If the sanctity of human life means that even someone in agony, who would end their own life if they could and who seeks assistance from others, should not be helped to die, then it's not going to matter if reliable safeguards can be devised to stop pressure being put on the vulnerable - if, that is to say, there is no slippery slope where one is feared. And it's also not going to count for anything to be told (if this is true) that even the best palliative care cannot eliminate all cases of people dying a painful, lingering death.
Why do not the Archbishops and the Chief Rabbi simply leave out (2) and (3)? By itself (1) should be an argument-stopper. Could it be that they aren't confident of (1) being able to do all the work should what they say under (2) and/or (3) fail? To many the case for people being obliged to die slowly in pain, when they themselves - unpressured - want to bring the process to a quicker end, and this despite the palliative care available (because it doesn't suffice), would not look strong.
The principle of the sanctity of human life is not to be set aside lightly. But the principle that our lives are our own, including to dispose of if we so choose, is also important, and that is why most people differentiate between murder and suicide. The closer 'assisted dying' can be brought to 'normal' suicide the stronger the case that can be made for it. For everyone who agrees with this, the key arguments are going to be over (2) and (3). Can the slippery slope be avoided in this matter? Can palliative care deal with the problem?
It seems to me that one either engages in argument on both points as being the decisive ones, or else, if one holds to an unqualified version of (1), one must admit that (2) and (3) aren't relevant.
Postscript: I'm aware, of course, that in debate people will often appeal to considerations that they themselves don't regard as decisive, in the hope of persuading others who disagree with the assumptions they do regard as decisive. It still seems worth pointing out that in the present case (2) and (3), offered by the Archbishops and the Chief Rabbi as supplementary so long as the argument works in their favour, will become irrelevant if it doesn't work in their favour. It should also make us worry about an unqualified sanctity-of-life argument that (2) and (3) could be made irrelevant by it: that however prolonged and agonizing a death a person was dying, and however clear it was that, under no pressure from anyone at all, she really wanted help in ending her life, it would still be held to be wrong to give her that assistance.
[My friend Eve Garrard has written a post about the same letter. Hers and mine were written independently of one another. She examines the substance of each of the three arguments, and not just the relation between them.]