Why we can’t (and shouldn’t) separate God from the argument over assisted dying

As Friday’s Commons vote on assisted dying draws closer, the debate surrounding it, which has so far focused on issues about the terminally ill, pain, personal autonomy, the ethics of killing, and care, seems to have moved from respectful dialogue to becoming more fraught and personal.

One of the foremost advocates of assisted dying, Lord Falconer, has taken on the justice secretary Shabana Mahmood after she said that she would vote against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, introduced by her fellow Labour MP Kim Leadbeater. Mahmood has said she opposes the bill – it is a free vote, not whipped – on the grounds that she has an unshakeable belief in the sanctity and value of human life. She described legalised assisted dying, in a letter to her constituents, as a state death service.

According to Falconer – a Labour peer and former minister who has skin in the game through promoting a previous bill on assisted dying – Mahmood, who is Muslim, is imposing her religious beliefs on everyone else.

Into the fray stepped the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, who shares Mahmood’s view of the sanctity of life and told Times Radio that he wasn’t sure that Lord Falconer should be in politics if he can’t extend the democratic space to people with religious beliefs.

Cardinal Nichols has a point. Many people of faith – be they Christian or Muslim or from many other religions – will see Falconer’s dismissal of Mahmood as typical of the one prejudice that is allowed nowadays. Dismissing somebody on account of their gender, their sexuality, or their race is beyond the pale. But being anti-religion is not.

However, the real problem of getting rid of religion from any ethical debate is more than contravening the rights of the individual or disrespecting beliefs that many people share, despite Britain’s increasing secularism. It’s a problem because belief in God is actually very helpful when we think about the society in which we live and want to live in future.

Some years ago, when I worked as a senior executive at The Independent, I recall a conversation with a keenly socialist colleague who told me that he had a great deal of time for religion, despite being an atheist himself. Unlike politics, he said, religion was a belief system that constantly advocates equality – that we all have value.

This is certainly true of Christianity which has been the bedrock of Western civilisation for two thousand years – even if we have at times fallen down on it. It says each human being is unique, has inherent dignity.

You can see this thinking powerfully at work in the efforts of 18th-century abolitionists striving to end the slave trade. Yes, there were slave owners who were Christian, but the campaigners who worked to rid Britain of it – people like the Quaker-led Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and William Wilberforce – fought for abolition, showing that slavery was incompatible with Christianity, for it teaches all people are essentially equal and of the same value.

This belief in the equality of all people and their inherent dignity is why religious voices – such as that of Pope Francis – have increasingly been raised against capital punishment. Even those who have committed the most egregious crimes should not be killed, they argue. Killing another in the name of the state corrupts our society. It is taking away what is God-given – and mistakes can be made. Life – the gift we all have – is God-given and we should not take it away.

And this is why those believers deeply troubled by assisted dying see it as a moment which changes the foundations of our civilisation. That we are one people under God has been the cornerstone of our treatment of others. Take it away and you take away what it means to be human.

British parliamentarians have embraced this thinking in the past. They have abolished slavery. They have abolished capital punishment, despite its popularity with some vociferous members of the public. They have been convinced that the state should not be handing out death sentences.

As Lord Falconer’s comments about Shabana Mahmood highlighted, it’s easy to knock religion in this debate. People react badly to any suggestion that religious zealots might be taking over debate; they instinctively approve of interventions like Falconer’s. But think a little deeper about genuinely held beliefs and what the alternative is if we are to have ethical foundations for our laws.

In a democracy like ours, religion can shed light on what politics is trying to do. If you remember that, at heart, belief in God is about the value of every precious life, then faith isn’t a problem that should be banished. Instead, it offers a vital contribution to our national conversation – especially when we’re talking about matters of life and death.

Catherine Pepinster is a former editor of ‘The Tablet’