Lord Carey: I support assisted dying

[hrmjustin]

John Bingham

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, is supporting moves to legalise assisted dying, it has emerged.

His intervention is a dramatic breach with the official line of the Church of England. It comes days before the House of Lords considers a Bill tabled by Lord Falconer allowing doctors to prescribe terminally ill patients a lethal dose of drugs.

Lord Carey argues that upholding the sanctity of human life without regard to suffering caused in the process could go against the spirit of Christian teaching.

He will point to the fact that Christians already rely on the ethical principle of “double effect” to justify giving terminally ill patients doses of painkillers which will ultimately kill them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10963195/Lord-Carey-I-support-assisted-dying.html