It should not come as news to you that I take public, social action very seriously. This is not, as someone recently assumed, because I hold to a Post-millennial eschatology wherein Christians successfully establish a global golden age of peace and righteousness in society after which Christ will return. I reject such a notion as significantly at variance with what the Bible teaches about the last days. No, I take public, social action very seriously because it is right. I may or may not be successful by the world's standards, but I hope that in any case I might be found to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with my God (Micah 6:8). Likewise, I encourage you to do the same.
Another occasion presents itself for such socio-political engagement, as this coming week the House of Commons will debate a Bill which, if passed, would allow doctors to provide life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients. Although the doctors would not actually administer the drugs directly, they would give the drugs for self-administration to patients with a life expectancy of up to six months, upon request . In a society that a few decades ago began to permit the taking of life at its beginning in abortion, to permit the assisted taking of life at its end is not illogical. It is however thoroughly unrighteous and yet another way in which sinful humanity rejects God's image in and his authority over people. With this in mind I have written a letter to my local MP, Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green), respectfully appealing to her in very simple terms to vote against this Bill. Should, God forbid, the Bill pass its Second Reading, I will likely make a more thorough and detailed submission as I did with the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill in 2013 (this can been found on the Houses of Parliament website at http://www.publications.
The Assisted Dying (No. 2) Bill is not a trivial matter to which we can afford to turn a blind eye. I encourage you to contact your local MP and urge them to vote against the Bill on Friday. Feel free to use my letter, such as it is, as a model.
The following is my letter to Catherine West MP.
"Dear Ms West
I am writing with regard to Rob Marris MP’s Assisted Dying (No. 2) Bill 2015-16, due to have its second reading in the House of Commons on Friday, 11 September.
For around 2,400 years the Hippocratic Oath was taken by workers in the medical field as the ethical standard by which they would be held accountable. In the oath, introduced during the days of Greco-Roman paganism and originally addressed to the Olympian deity Apollo, medical practitioners of all kinds pledged "I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan." Though taking the oath has been passé for a few decades, can we not in these allegedly more enlightened times embrace the spirit that these words represent? We are obligated to help people through disease, not to help them die. We should provide people with help for life and hope in death, not with help out of life and hope for death. Far from promoting pain and anguish (as has been insinuated of the Bill's opponents in some quarters), this ancient approach to end of life treatment encourages a high regard for human existence, compassionate care for the terminally ill, and the bravery to, as Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas would have it, "rage against the dying of the light."
If passed, this Assisted Dying Bill will rob our nation's frailest of the dignity of a natural death. If passed, this Bill will endanger the most vulnerable members of society by presenting them with a choice they do not have the emotional capacity, moral constitution, or divine right to make. Furthermore, while it might seem cliche to argue that passing the Bill is "a slippery slope", surely by permitting and enabling the taking of one's own life now - regardless of circumstance - we move a hair's breadth away from a time when the life in our own diseased and decrepit bodies might one day be taken from us. The profoundly negative impact the passing of this Bill will have on the terminally ill and their treatment brings with it severe societal repercussions for everyone by perpetuating a culture of death instead of creating a culture of life.
As my Member of Parliament, I hope that you will attend the debate on 11/09/2015 and vote against the Bill at its second reading. A bill as devastating as this to the moral fabric and social vitality of our nation and the charitable compassion and individual courage of its residents should not proceed any further.
I would greatly appreciate it if you could let me know how you intend to vote on this most important issue and how you have taken my views into account.
I look forward to hearing from you in due course.
Sincerely yours
Ryan King"
This pastoral column was distributed to the congregation of Grace Baptist Church (Wood Green) in the week following Sunday, 30 August, 2015.
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