The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

‘I feel like I have my life back’. These are the words Debbie Purvee used to express her relief and delight when the Law Lords upheld her appeal. Their judgment requires the Director of Public Prosecutions to issue guidance on the circumstances in which he would or would not prosecute someone for assisting another to commit suicide. As you know, suicide itself is no longer a criminal offence, but under the Suicide Act 1961 it is still an offence to encourage or assist another to commit suicide. More than 100 British people have been accompanied to the Dignitas clinic in Zurich. Although no prosecutions have been brought, the threat continues to hang over those who make that journey with their loved ones. Debbie Purvee felt she had her life back, because this was the end – for now at least – of the campaign for clear guidance which had been consuming her life. She and her partner Omar Puente were now free to enjoy life without worrying about what would happen to him if that was how her life ended. If we can assume that the guidance, when it appears, will be sufficiently clear, they will know what they have to do to avoid the risk that Omar will be prosecuted and perhaps imprisoned for supporting her on that last fateful journey. Best of all, she can put off going to Zurich for longer if she knows that she does not have to travel on her own.
The Director of Public Prosecutions faces a difficult task. Having investigated all the previous cases, he has presumably concluded in each case either that there were no grounds for prosecution, or that prosecution was not in the public interest. His staff will have encountered a long line of people who, after long and serious heart-searching, have concluded that love requires them to support rather than obstruct the wishes of the person who has decided to end their life. Opinion polls suggest that there is widespread public sympathy for assisting the terminally ill in this way. On the other hand the DPP will not wish to open the door for pressure to be brought on vulnerable people to end their lives prematurely, so as not to become too great a burden, as they may rightly or wrongly suppose, on those who care for them. It’s only a month since the House of Lords, in its law-making capacity, rejected a carefully crafted amendment to the Suicide Act, which would have introduced a procedure for checking that the individual really was terminally ill, had capacity to take the decision, and had freely agreed to it in writing, before proper and independent witnesses. It was argued that easing the conditions for assisting suicide without fear of prosecution was a slippery slope, on which it would be better not to venture.
If the Director of Public Prosecutions faces a difficult task over the coming weeks, so too does the Christian church. As Anglicans, our concern for the sacredness of all life is more subtly nuanced than that of the Roman Catholic church, but it remains the starting point for any debate about the circumstances under which life may be ended. If the effect of the DPP’s guidance is to decriminalise assisted suicide in certain circumstances, we shall have to come to terms with a new option for the terminally ill which neither they nor we had to face up to before. Some will undoubtedly want to say that there are no circumstances in which we should intervene to terminate a life. All life is precious in the sight of God. All life, however hopeless and meaningless it may seem, however impaired by physical or mental disability, however racked by pain, is of inestimable value before God, whose love knows no limits. Others will be more willing to recognise that a point might come in someone’s life when they might conclude that even if they could continue to bear for themselves the pain and misery of ever diminishing faculties, they were no longer willing to impose on others the ever-growing burden of their care. Could there not be circumstances where we might be allowed to lay down our life for our friends?
These are very difficult questions to wrestle with, but they are not new, even if their application to assisted suicide may give them a new twist. Over the years, as our understanding of the human mind has advanced, we have come to recognise that most suicides are a terminal illness rather than an act of wilful self-murder. As medical knowledge has advanced, we have come to understand and accept that some treatments which relieve pain may also hasten death. We accept too that there may be circumstances in which it is appropriate to withdraw treatment altogether, including food or assistance with breathing, in the knowledge that this will allow a person to die. Arguably, assisted suicide is not so very different. If that is so, we need to think about the safeguards that should be put in place, both under the law and in the exercise of our pastoral responsibilities. We need to be ready to support those who find themselves facing such a choice; we need to go with them as far as we can on their own journey through the valley of the shadow of death; and we need to support their families and their friends.
I am the bread of life. In this morning’s reading from the Old Testament, we encountered the prophet Elijah at a moment of great stress, so great indeed that he sat down under his broom tree and asked that he might die. He sleeps and is woken by an angel, who feeds him and sends him on his way to Horeb, the mountain of God. There he will learn that God is not in the fire which he has just summoned in his angry, macho contest with the prophets of Baal and Asherah, but in the still small voice, which will sustain his faith, and give him new tasks to carry out.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. When we bring our stressed and broken lives into his presence, he feeds us with the bread of life, and the bread that he gives for the life of the world – for my life and yours – is his flesh, the Word that was made flesh, God in human form, sacrificed for us, and now offered to us in the bread that we share around His table. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. Stressed out like Elijah, we may find strength for the next stage of our journey. As we move on, we may even find, as he did, a new balance and a new purpose in our lives.
I find it difficult to imagine that a loving God could ever encourage me to take my own life, on the grounds that it had become worthless. The giving and receiving of care, stressful and burdensome as it may be, can also be a source of grace and blessing. But if it is acceptable, even praiseworthy, for thousands of young men to give their lives for others in war, why should not the same principle apply in other circumstances? There are no easy answers. My point is simply that a compassionate church should not rush into judgment on someone who after much prayer and thought might decide that was the right step for them to take. Nor in those circumstances should we refuse to support those who may have assisted them. Our care should be to put in place a serious process of discernment, and be prepared to support those who engage in it.
I am the bread of life. In William Temple’s words, ‘to eat of this bread – to receive the living Lord into the soul, so that He becomes its Life – is to live for ever’. Our life on earth is very precious, but I am persuaded that there is nothing we possess, even life itself, that we cannot give away for love’s sake. As St John tells us, whoever believes has eternal life. That, to my mind, is the only life that is not negotiable.