Category: Assisted Dying

When Change Becomes a Creed: The Crisis of Continuity in Church and Culture

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Why Cardinal Goh’s “Adapting to Change” reveals not renewal, but rupture—and how the same error is collapsing the West from within

The July 2025 reflection by Cardinal William Goh of Singapore, titled Adapting to Change, arrives at a time when the Church is facing profound upheaval. His meditation—presented as a scriptural and pastoral exhortation—functions in reality as a theological statement: namely, that change is intrinsic to fidelity, and that without adaptation, tradition becomes sterile and irrelevant.

This premise, though expressed with spiritual sincerity, raises significant concerns for the faithful. It proposes a model of theological development that blurs the boundaries between immutable truth and mutable practice—one that has contributed to the ongoing crisis of identity, doctrine, and liturgy in the post conciliar Church.Subscribed

Change as a Theological Imperative?
Cardinal Goh’s core thesis is that “not changing is being unfaithful to our past,” and that even theological expression must evolve in order to preserve relevance.¹ He maintains that while doctrine cannot change, theology “is always evolving,” and that a failure to re-express truth in new forms risks rendering the Christian message “redundant, if not irrelevant.”²

He applies this logic to traditional practices such as fasting and penance, but most significantly to the Mass itself. The Eucharist, he argues, has undergone constant change since apostolic times, and must continue to change so as to remain “faithful to its original meaning yet relevant to our times.”³

Yet this view omits the vital distinction between authentic development and doctrinal mutation. It conflates adaptation in delivery with alteration in content. The Church does not maintain her relevance by reshaping her message to fit each era’s preferences. Rather, she remains the enduring sign of contradiction in every generation—her witness sharpened, not softened, by fidelity to what is eternal.

St. Vincent of Lérins and the Rule of Tradition
The true measure of change in the Church is not pastoral expediency or sociological effectiveness, but fidelity to the rule of faith. As St. Vincent of Lérins taught, genuine development must occur eodem sensu eademque sententia—“according to the same sense and the same judgment.”⁴ Any theological development that reinterprets the meaning of doctrine, rather than clarifying or deepening it, must be rejected.

Cardinal Goh’s suggestion that tradition demands constant re-expression fails to account for this distinction. If change is made the criterion of fidelity, then the deposit of faith becomes plastic—shaped by the moods of the age rather than grounded in divine revelation.

Liturgy and the Myth of Continuous Evolution
The notion that the Roman Rite has always changed and therefore must continue to do so requires qualification. Organic development—yes. Radical rupture—no. The received liturgy of the Church, from the earliest Eucharistic prayers to the codified Roman Canon, developed slowly and reverently across centuries. The upheavals of the late 20th century, by contrast, introduced discontinuities in structure, language, orientation, and theology. These were not “new wineskins,” but a new vessel altogether.

If we are to preserve the Mass as a true participation in the heavenly liturgy, as taught by the Fathers and reaffirmed by the Council of Trent, then it must be protected from innovation that compromises its sacrificial nature, its vertical orientation, and its mystical continuity with the worship of the saints.

Penance and the Collapse of Catholic Memory
Cardinal Goh rightly laments the decline in penitential discipline following the modern substitution of individual choice for communal practice. Friday abstinence, once a unifying sign of Catholic identity and solidarity with Christ’s Passion, has become optional and largely forgotten.⁵

This erosion of visible markers of faith is not the result of failing to adapt, but of adapting unwisely—abandoning discipline in the name of flexibility. The ancient practices of fasting, abstinence, and liturgical observance do not need to be rebranded for relevance; they need to be restored with reverence.

The Danger of Ambiguity
The greatest danger in Cardinal Goh’s reflection is not its call for spiritual attentiveness, but its lack of theological precision. Phrases such as “theology is always evolving” and “we must be in sync with the times” risk reducing revealed truth to a negotiable category. The Church does not exist to keep pace with the world, but to call the world to repentance and conversion.

Christ is not “new wine” in the sense of novelty, but in the sense of divine fulfilment. The parable of the wineskins is not an endorsement of constant reinvention, but a warning: when new forms are poured into unsuitable structures, both the wine and the vessel are lost (Mt 9:17).

The Secular Parallel: Cultural Collapse by Innovation
This theological tendency toward perpetual adaptation finds an uncanny mirror in secular culture. The post-Christian West is governed by a similar fallacy: that all progress is necessarily good, that inherited wisdom must be deconstructed, and that anything old is by definition oppressive.

From architecture to education, morality to medicine, Western societies have adopted the same creed: change equals virtue. Thus, classical learning has been supplanted by identity politics, marriage by contractual fluidity, and the natural law by arbitrary feelings. This is not progress—it is cultural amnesia, a forgetting not only of who we are but of what it means to be human.

The logic of Cardinal Goh’s “dynamic fidelity,” applied outside the Church, leads to grotesque results: sex reassignment in children, the redefinition of family, euthanasia for the lonely, and sacrilegious celebrations masquerading as mercy. When truth becomes negotiable, power fills the void. When identity is fluid, tyranny is inevitable.

Conclusion: Fidelity Means Preservation, Not Innovation
True progress in the Church is measured not by novelty, but by deeper immersion in the mystery already revealed. The Catholic tradition is not an empty shell awaiting reinterpretation, but a living heritage handed down with authority and guarded by the Holy Spirit.

As the Church faces increasing pressure to adapt her doctrines, redefine her sacraments, and restructure her identity, it is essential to recall the timeless counsel of the Fathers: What has been believed everywhere, always, and by all must remain the criterion of truth.⁶

To preserve the faith is not to resist growth, but to ensure that every development is faithful in content and form to the one deposit entrusted to the saints. Let the Church adapt only insofar as she never ceases to be the Church—and let society repent of its own blind embrace of change before it forgets what truth is altogether.

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¹ Cardinal William Goh, “Adapting to Change,” 5 July 2025, Facebook Reflection.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ St. Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium, ch. 23.
⁵ Goh, “Adapting to Change.”
⁶ St. Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium, ch. 2.

Public Sin and Ecclesial Responsibility: The Forgotten Meaning of the Confiteor

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“I confess to Almighty God,
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have sinned…”

These familiar words from the Confiteor, recited at the beginning of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, are not a mere liturgical formality. They are a declaration—before God and before the Church—that our sins, even when privately conceived, affect the whole Body of Christ. The phrase “and to you, my brothers and sisters” is not poetic embellishment. It is a solemn admission that we are accountable to one another because we are mystically united in the Communion of Saints.

The Church’s Ancient Witness: Public Penance as Restoration
In the early Church, this accountability was visibly enacted. Grave sins, particularly those causing public scandal, were confessed publicly before the congregation. In the medieval Church, this developed into the rite of public penance, where notorious sinners were ritually expelled on Ash Wednesday by the bishop and only readmitted to the sacraments after a period of visible penance, culminating in solemn reconciliation on Maundy Thursday. These rites were not acts of humiliation but of restoration—remedies applied by the Church to heal her members and preserve her witness.

The Crisis Today: Silence in the Face of Manifest Grave Sin
This principle—public sin demands public repentance—has been tragically obscured in modern times, especially in the realm of politics. In the name of tolerance, diplomacy, or false mercy, the Church now too often treats grave public scandal as a private spiritual matter. But silence in the face of manifest sin is not mercy; it is pastoral abandonment. It leaves the sinner in peril, misleads the faithful, and weakens the Church’s public witness.

A Grave Parliamentary Offense
On 17 June 2025, the House of Commons passed Clause 191 of the Crime and Policing Bill, effectively decriminalising abortion up to and including birth. It is the most radical change to British abortion law in over fifty years. Among the 379 MPs who voted for this barbaric provision were thirteen self-professed Catholics. Some also supported the legalisation of assisted suicide—undermining the Church’s constant teaching on the inviolability of human life. These votes were not cast in ignorance or ambiguity, but with full knowledge of the Church’s moral law.

The Named Offenders

Those MPs include:

  • Rebecca Long-Bailey (Labour – Salford)
  • Dame Siobhain McDonagh (Labour – Mitcham & Morden)
  • Andy McDonald (Labour – Middlesbrough & Thornaby)
  • Dr Ben Spencer (Conservative – Runnymede & Weybridge)
  • Chris Coghlan (Liberal Democrat – Dorking & Horley)
  • Dan Aldridge (Labour – Weston-super-Mare)
  • Kevin Bonavia (Labour – Stevenage)
  • David Chadwick (Liberal Democrat – Brecon, Radnor & Cwm Tawe)
  • Colum Eastwood (SDLP – Foyle)
  • Florence Eshalomi (Labour & Co-op – Vauxhall)
  • Claire Hanna (SDLP – Belfast South & Mid Down)
  • Pat McFadden (Labour – Wolverhampton South East)
  • Oliver Ryan (Independent – Burnley)

To date, there has been no public act of repentance, no retraction, no clarification, and no statement of conscience from any of them. If, by the grace of God, any one of them has since repented, confessed, and been absolved, then that too should be made known publicly, as the sin was public and caused grave scandal to the faithful.

The Distinction Between Public and Private Sin
This reflects a crucial and often misunderstood distinction in Catholic moral teaching between private sin and public sin:

  • Private sin is known only to the individual (or a few), and its harm is primarily internal—against one’s own soul and relationship with God. These sins are rightly confessed in the secrecy of the confessional, where grace heals in silence.
  • Public sin, however, is committed openly or is widely known—especially by those in positions of visibility or influence. Its effects are external and communal: it wounds the unity of the Church, confuses the faithful, and leads others into error by scandal—that is, the sin of causing others to stumble (cf. Matt. 18:6).

Scandal and the Duty of Correction
Scandal, in Catholic teaching, is not merely about causing offense. It is about causing spiritual harm by leading others to believe that sin is acceptable. When a public figure who claims to be Catholic knowingly promotes abortion or euthanasia, and suffers no ecclesial consequence, the result is a false witness—one that suggests Catholic doctrine can be disregarded without penalty.

Answering Objections: Is Public Reproof Uncharitable?
Some argue that it is uncharitable or unjust to publicly call out these MPs. But this objection misunderstands the nature of mercy, correction, and authority.

Catholic tradition, Scripture, and canon law are united on this point: public sin requires public correction. As St. Paul exhorts, “Them that sin, reprove before all: that the rest also may have fear” (1 Tim 5:20). St. Thomas Aquinas affirms that where scandal arises from public sin, it must be corrected publicly, lest others be led into the same error (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 33, a. 7).

Charity is not the avoidance of discomfort. It is the willing of the true good of the other. To allow Catholic legislators to persist in sacrilege while maintaining public communion with the Church is not merciful—it is cruel.

The Role of Bishops and the Laity
That is why Canon 915 obliges ministers of Holy Communion to withhold the Sacrament from those who “obstinately persevere in manifest grave sin.” This is not a punishment but a safeguard—for the dignity of the Eucharist, the integrity of the Church, and the salvation of the person in error.

The bishops of the Church bear a particular responsibility here. As successors of the Apostles, they are not only private pastors but public guardians of the faith. When they fail to admonish Catholic public officials who defy the Church in grave matters, they share in the scandal by omission.

The laity, too, are not exempt. The Confiteor reminds each of us that sin—even when secret—has consequences for others. When the faithful fail to insist on coherence between public action and professed belief, they allow falsehood to masquerade as fidelity.

The Goal: Restoration Through Visible Repentance
Yet the goal is not exclusion but reconciliation. The Church longs to welcome back the sinner—but repentance must come first. The Confiteor ends not in condemnation but in hope: “Pray for me to the Lord our God.”

If any of the MPs who voted against life and truth were to repent, confess, and publicly amend their error, the Church should receive them with joy. But that repentance must be visible. For where the sin was public, the healing must be public too.

Conclusion: A Call to Fidelity and Courage
In our time, the Church must recover the clarity of her Tradition and the courage of her saints. Only then can she speak with authority to a world that has forgotten what sin is, and no longer believes in grace.

First published on Selsey Substack

  1. Code of Canon Law, Canon 915: “Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
  2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1385: “Anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to communion.”
  3. For the list of MPs and their votes, see The Catholic Herald, 6 July 2025.
  4. On the nature and necessity of public penance, cf. Dom Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, and Fr. Pius Parsch, The Church’s Year of Grace, vol. II.
  5. On the distinction between public and private sin, cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 33, a. 7.
  6. On scandal and its gravity, cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§2284–2287.
  7. On ecclesial correction as an act of charity, cf. Pope St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Rule, and St. Catherine of Siena, Letters, esp. to Pope Gregory XI.

Open Letter to Zöe Franklin MP on the Assisted Dying Bill

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On 24 June 2025, Liberal Democrat MP for Guildford, Zöe Franklin, gave an interview to Premier Christian News explaining her decision to support the Assisted Dying Bill, which recently passed its Third Reading in the House of Commons. In that interview, Ms Franklin described the Bill as “safe, compassionate and carefully regulated,” and stated that her Christian faith informed her vote. She expressed the view that God “is not content” with the suffering of those unable to access assisted death and argued that such inequality is unjust.

In response, Archbishop Jerome Lloyd of the Old Roman Apostolate has issued an open letter, published below, addressing the moral, theological, and legislative concerns raised by Ms Franklin’s position.

The Archbishop’s letter engages not only with the doctrinal incompatibility of assisted suicide with the Christian faith, but also with the serious legal, medical, and ethical implications of the Bill. Drawing on official statements from multiple Royal Colleges—including the Physicians, Psychiatrists, General Practitioners, Pathologists, and Surgeons—the letter underscores widespread professional alarm about the Bill’s deficiencies in safeguarding the vulnerable, ensuring clinical oversight, and preserving the integrity of end-of-life care.

The letter also reflects the consistent moral teaching of the Church on the sanctity of human life, the nature of true compassion, and the dangers of allowing emotionalism to guide public policy.

This intervention is part of the Old Roman Apostolate’s broader mission to defend the dignity of the human person and bear witness to perennial Catholic teaching in the public square. It is offered in a spirit of respectful engagement, pastoral concern, and moral clarity.

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The Rule of Feeling: How Emotionalism Is Undermining Law and Public Reason

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When feeling becomes law, justice falters

A marked feature of contemporary political discourse is the increasing prominence of emotionalism—the prioritisation of subjective feeling over objective reasoning—in shaping law and public policy. While empathy and moral awareness are essential in any humane society, the over-reliance on emotional appeals raises concerns about the coherence, stability, and justice of resulting legislation, particularly in areas requiring ethical nuance and long-term foresight.

Emotionalism, in this context, refers to the dominance of affective responses—such as compassion, outrage, or personal testimony—over empirical evidence, ethical reasoning, and consistent legal principle. In recent years, this tendency has become especially evident in debates over abortion, assisted suicide, gender identity, immigration, and education.

Legislating from Sentiment: Key Examples

In June 2025, Parliament voted to repeal sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, effectively decriminalising abortion and removing nearly all penalties for self-managed procedures in England and Wales¹. The debate was dominated by emotionally charged appeals rather than objective legal and ethical argument. Introducing the amendment, Dame Diana Johnson MP declared:

“Women who end a pregnancy need support, not the threat of a criminal trial. Imagine the trauma of a miscarriage, and then imagine being investigated by the police as though you were a criminal. That is happening in Britain today.”²

This statement exemplified the emotional framing of the reform: invoking miscarriage, trauma, and criminalisation to elicit moral urgency. Broader issues—such as gestational limits, post-viability protection, or the rights of the unborn—were largely eclipsed. Several pro-life MPs, including Kemi Badenoch, raised concern that the legislation eliminated prosecutorial safeguards and created the legal possibility of abortion up to birth in certain scenarios³.

What was conspicuously absent from the debate was any serious engagement with the implicit recognition of unborn human personhood—enshrined both in the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and in the very structure of the Abortion Act 1967, which did not legalise abortion outright but instead made provisional exceptions to prosecution for what would otherwise be considered the unlawful killing of a person.

Instead, the chamber was swept along by emotionalist rhetoric that displaced reasoned reflection. This is not how legislators should approach questions of life and law. The deliberate unmaking of legal and moral precedent through rhetorical sleight and sentimental appeal is a betrayal of the dignity of parliamentary governance. When emotionalism supplants philosophical and juridical reasoning, it is not progress but regression—a descent into policymaking by pathos rather than principle.Subscribed

Parliament also voted in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (Assisted Dying) Bill, permitting physician-assisted suicide for patients with six months or fewer to live. Supporters frequently invoked themes of personal suffering and indignity. Labour MP Kim Leadbeater stated: *“Give dying people choice, autonomy, and dignity”*⁴. During earlier sessions, MPs recounted emotionally charged stories of watching loved ones die, often moving the chamber to tears⁵. One of the most poignant appeals came from Sir Stephen Timms MP, who said:

“I watched my wife’s mother suffer in the final weeks of her life. She was in pain, terrified, and crying out that she wanted it to be over. No one should be forced to endure that when they are beyond hope of recovery.”⁶

Such deeply personal narratives, while sincere, were used to frame legal change as a moral obligation. Critics of the bill warned that these sentiments, though powerful, were being used to justify significant shifts in the ethical foundations of medicine and end-of-life care—without adequate consideration of coercion, palliative alternatives, or the long-term societal impact.

One of the most striking features of the assisted suicide debate was the scant regard shown by many proponents for the views of professional medical bodies. Despite clear and publicised warnings from the Royal College of Physicians, the British Medical Association, and the Royal Colleges of General Practitioners and Psychiatrists, these objections were largely brushed aside⁷. Their concerns—ranging from the risks to vulnerable patients, to the erosion of the doctor-patient relationship—were eclipsed by emotionally driven assertions of individual autonomy. This marginalisation of institutional expertise demonstrates how emotionalism, when dominant, leads to policymaking detached from professional prudence and ethical safeguards.

This same emotional tenor is evident in UK policy concerning gender identity. NHS guidelines have endorsed gender-affirming interventions—including puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones—based on emotional imperatives such as alleviating distress and preventing suicide. However, the Cass Review (2024) found the evidence base for these interventions to be “remarkably weak,” and identified significant long-term risks⁸. The report further documented that some clinicians were reluctant to raise concerns for fear of reputational damage⁹.

In schools, the promotion of gender ideology has similarly leaned on emotional language. Pupils are often encouraged to express chosen identities and pronouns under the guise of kindness and support. Then-Education Secretary Gillian Keegan defended draft guidance by saying it “puts the best interests of all children first”¹⁰. However, as was noted in the House of Lords, “Actions such as changing names and pronouns are serious and can have a wider impact”¹¹—a sober warning easily drowned out by emotionally charged rhetoric about safeguarding and affirmation.

Immigration discourse likewise illustrates the prevalence of emotionalism. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper framed recent policy directions in explicitly moral terms: “Defend migrants and develop a system based on ‘compassion and dignity’… safe routes”¹². Yet emotional appeals, while well-intentioned, often obscure critical questions of integration, capacity, legality, and social cohesion. As one MP observed during debate: “The whole debate about immigration is descending into an ugly place where everyone is being asked to take sides”¹³.

Undermining Legal Equality: Selective Application of the Equality Act

Nowhere is the replacement of law with sentiment more structurally apparent than in the inconsistent application of the Equality Act 2010. In April 2025, the UK Supreme Court ruled that “sex” in the Act refers to biological sex, not gender identity¹⁴. This affirmed that single-sex spaces and services—such as prisons, refuges, or sports—may lawfully exclude individuals on the basis of sex, even if they possess a Gender Recognition Certificate¹⁵.

Yet many public bodies continue to act as though the law says the opposite. The Scottish Government, for instance, retained guidance in schools allowing children to socially transition, use opposite-sex facilities, and be affirmed in their chosen identity without parental knowledge—prompting legal warnings from gender-critical campaigners¹⁶. The Equality and Human Rights Commission issued ambiguous guidance suggesting institutions could sidestep sex-based segregation if done in the name of “inclusion”¹⁷.

This has resulted in a two-tier enforcement of the Act:

  • Women’s sex-based protections are increasingly bypassed under pressure to be “trans inclusive.”
  • Gender identity claims are privileged, even when in direct contradiction to statutory law and judicial interpretation.

The result is legal incoherence. In one setting, courts reject compelled pronoun usage for male defendants in rape trials¹⁸; in another, schools and workplaces encourage staff and pupils to treat gender identity as unquestionable and enforceable. Such inconsistency undermines the rule of law, public confidence, and the very integrity of protected characteristic legislation.Subscribed

The Dangers of Emotion-Driven Legislation

Legislation shaped primarily by emotionalism produces laws that are reactive, inconsistent, and vulnerable to ideological capture. Several structural risks are especially apparent:

1. Legal Incoherence and Loopholes
In the case of abortion, legal language driven by anecdotal urgency—rather than principled deliberation—resulted in ambiguous gestational boundaries and a lack of clarity on regulatory oversight. Law becomes selectively applied and difficult to defend.

2. Erosion of Professional Ethics
In medicine, emotion-led mandates can undermine professional conscience. Doctors may face pressure to participate in ethically questionable acts, particularly where the appeal to “choice” eclipses the deeper question of whether a given act is morally or clinically justifiable.

3. Weaponisation of Victimhood
Framing certain identity groups as emotionally untouchable—such as “trans youth” under threat of suicide—can result in the silencing of valid medical and educational concerns. The invocation of emotional harm becomes a veto on discussion itself.

4. Suppression of Dissent
Emotional narratives recast disagreement not as debate, but as moral offense. Those who raise concerns about abortion, gender ideology, or immigration policy are accused not of error, but of cruelty.

5. Undermining Rule of Law
When feeling replaces truth as the standard for law, justice becomes unstable. Laws cease to act as a rational safeguard for all and become instead an instrument of cultural mood, vulnerable to manipulation and volatility.

6. Infantilisation of Public Discourse
Finally, emotionalism discourages critical thought and the virtues of citizenship. Public reasoning is replaced by slogans, therapeutic mantras, and reactive policymaking, rendering society less capable of handling complex moral and social questions.

These are not new phenomena. In previous eras of cultural upheaval—the French Revolution being a prime example—reasoned deliberation gave way to emotional fervour, and the results were rarely just or lasting. The tendency to replace law with feeling, deliberation with passion, has historically opened the door to instability, injustice, and tyranny. As C.S. Lewis observed, “The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it.”

Restoring Moral Clarity in Lawmaking

To restore confidence in the rule of law and uphold the common good, a measured response is needed. Parliament could establish a requirement for independent ethical review for legislation concerning life, identity, and medicine. Institutions representing professional, legal, and civic reasoning must not be sidelined by emotionally charged advocacy. Public bodies must be required to align policy with judicial rulings, not activist guidance. The Equality Act must be enforced consistently—not ideologically.

A society ruled by feeling may be momentarily comforted—but it will not endure.

Footnotes
¹ The Telegraph, “MPs vote to allow abortion up to birth in UK law,” 18 June 2025.
² Hansard, House of Commons Debate, 2 June 2025, Dame Diana Johnson MP.
³ The Times, “Ministers likely to back ‘extreme’ plans to decriminalise abortion,” June 2025.
⁴ Kim Leadbeater MP, Hansard, 24 May 2025.
⁵ BBC News, “Commons supports assisted dying bill,” 24 May 2025.
⁶ Sir Stephen Timms MP, Hansard, 20 June 2025.
⁷ Royal College statements, March–May 2025.
⁸ Cass Review, April 2024.
⁹ Ibid., Chapters 6–7.
¹⁰ DfE Press Statement, December 2023.
¹¹ Hansard, House of Lords Debate, March 2024.
¹² Yvette Cooper, quoted in The Telegraph, 4 March 2025.
¹³ Hansard, Immigration Debate, February 2025.
¹⁴ For Women Scotland Ltd v Scottish Ministers, UK Supreme Court, April 2025.
¹⁵ Ibid.
¹⁶ The Guardian, “Scottish government given deadline to implement biological sex ruling,” 18 June 2025.
¹⁷ EHRC Guidance, May 2025.
¹⁸ The Times, “Judges advised to reject rape defendants’ chosen pronouns,” June 2025.

Originally published on Selsey Substack

The Forgotten Premise of Equality

Published on by TheOldRomanLeave a comment

Recovering the Inherent Value of Human Life in a Postmodern World

In today’s public discourse, equality is frequently affirmed as a moral ideal. Yet how that ideal is applied can vary widely. From questions surrounding life’s beginning and end to debates about identity and medicine, deep tensions have emerged in our cultural understanding of what it means to be human. This essay offers a gentle but clear reflection: Can we still affirm equal dignity for all persons—consistently, coherently, and compassionately? Drawing from science, reason, and widely shared ethical principles, this is not an argument of ideology but of conscience.

Introduction

Modern societies often expect public moral debates to proceed without reference to religious belief. This approach, commonly described as pluralistic or secular, is intended to create fairness in diverse cultures. Yet even on this shared ground, we face unavoidable questions: Why should any human life be protected? What does it mean to be a person? What makes some actions right and others harmful?

Beginning from reason and shared civic assumptions, one finds that the case for the inherent value of every human life is not only defensible—it is profoundly humane. This essay traces that case from life’s earliest beginnings through questions of dignity, autonomy, and identity.

Human Life Begins at Conception

Biological science consistently teaches that human life begins at conception. At the moment of fertilisation, a distinct organism comes into being with its own genetic identity, oriented toward development as a human being. A 2018 study surveying over 5,000 biologists—representing a range of worldviews—found overwhelming agreement with this conclusion¹. Even prominent atheist thinker Richard Dawkins has acknowledged this biological fact².

The moral debate, then, is not over when life begins, but when it should be protected. Some argue that viability, consciousness, or independence should determine moral status. Yet these criteria are variable and fragile. They might exclude newborns, those with dementia, or the comatose. A consistent and inclusive ethic begins by recognising that if someone is human, their life merits protection—not because of what they can do, but because of who they are.

Dignity Is Not Earned—It Is Inherent

The cornerstone of modern human rights is the affirmation that every person possesses inherent dignity. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins with this premise: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”³. International covenants uphold rights as flowing from this dignity, not granted by governments or earned by abilities⁴.

This vision implies that human worth is not contingent on usefulness, awareness, or status. As ethicist John Tasioulas explains, dignity is not a reward for virtue or competence, but a condition of simply being human⁵.

This matters greatly. When we begin to ration dignity based on characteristics or capacities, we create hierarchies of humanity. History shows where that path leads. To protect the vulnerable, society must begin with the presumption that every human life—regardless of condition or circumstance—has equal moral worth.

Abortion Is Not Healthcare, Nor Is It a Reproductive Right

Public discussions often frame abortion as “healthcare” or a “reproductive right.” These labels, however, obscure more than they clarify.

Healthcare exists to heal disease and preserve life. But pregnancy is not a disease, and a fetus is not a tumour. Abortion ends a biologically healthy process and terminates a distinct human life⁶. It is not morally or medically neutral. For many women, abortion is followed by grief, regret, or emotional trauma. Research shows increased risks of depression, anxiety, and even suicidality following abortion⁷.

The term “reproductive right” also misleads. Reproduction has already occurred by the time a woman is pregnant. What’s at issue is not fertility control, but ending an already-conceived life. This distinction is crucial for ethical clarity.

A more compassionate framework would provide women with real alternatives—financial support, emotional care, and community resources—so that no woman feels she must choose between her child and her future.

The Body and the Question of Identity

Another cultural trend is the detachment of personal identity from the body. In abortion, the fetus’s body is treated as irrelevant. In gender ideology, one’s own body may be seen as an obstacle to identity. In both cases, biology is made secondary to subjective feeling.

This produces contradictions. A fetus may be regarded as a baby if wanted, or as medical waste if not. A minor too young to consent to a tattoo may be permitted to undergo irreversible procedures to alter sex characteristics. These are not edge cases—they are increasingly embedded in policy and practice¹³.

A more coherent anthropology sees the human person as a unity of body and soul, or body and mind. Our bodies are not accidents to be overcome; they are part of who we are. Respecting the person means respecting the whole person—body included.

The Tyranny of Choice

Modern moral discourse often treats autonomy as the supreme good. But freedom requires more than choice—it requires truth. A good choice presupposes some objective difference between good and evil, helpful and harmful.

Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, once said, “No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother”⁹. But this formulation elevates choice above the thing chosen. It risks overlooking the rights of those who cannot choose—the unborn, the elderly, the dependent.

This also applies to assisted suicide. Proponents argue that ending one’s life is a matter of personal autonomy. But research from jurisdictions where assisted dying is legal shows many people are motivated not by physical pain, but by fear of being a burden or by loneliness¹¹. Lord Sumption, speaking from the UK Supreme Court, warned that legalising assisted suicide may impose social pressure on the vulnerable to “do the decent thing” and opt for death¹².

True autonomy includes the freedom to live without coercion—whether economic, social, or medical. Compassion means accompanying those who suffer, not eliminating them.

A Question of Coherence

What binds all these trends together is a growing incoherence in how society defines and defends human life. A fetus lacks rights because it cannot speak for itself; an elderly person seeks assisted death for the same reason. A child is deemed too young to drink, vote, or marry, yet considered old enough to redefine their biological sex.

Such contradictions suggest that our ethical frameworks are being shaped more by ideology than by principle. If rights are grounded in feelings, utility, or social acceptance, then they can be withdrawn just as easily. Human dignity becomes conditional, not universal.

To remain just and humane, society must rediscover a consistent principle of equal worth—one that applies regardless of age, ability, desire, or circumstance.

Conclusion: A Shared Foundation for Human Worth

This essay has appealed not to religious doctrine but to reason, science, and conscience. It has sought to show that the inherent value of every human life is not a sectarian belief, but a foundation of civil society.

We may differ on many matters, but we can agree on this: every human being matters. Equality means more than fairness—it means recognising the profound worth of every person, especially those with the least power or visibility.

To recover that truth is not to impose faith, but to restore humanity. And in doing so, we reclaim the forgotten premise of equality—the only one on which a just and compassionate future can be built.

Footnotes
¹ Jacobs, S. (2018). Contemporary Biological Views on When Life Begins. University of Chicago Survey.
² Richard Dawkins, interview with Brendan O’Connor, RTÉ Radio 1, March 2012.
³ United Nations. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1.
⁴ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Preamble.
⁵ Tasioulas, J. (2013). “Human Dignity and the Foundations of Human Rights.” In Understanding Human Dignity, British Academy.
⁶ American College of Pediatricians. (2017). “When Human Life Begins.”
⁷ Reardon, D.C. (2002). “The Aftermath of Abortion: A Review of Psychological Effects.” The Linacre Quarterly, 69(1), 29–41.
⁸ Taylor, C. (2007). A Secular Age. Harvard University Press.
⁹ Sanger, M. (1920). Woman and the New Race. Brentano’s.
¹⁰ Anderson, R. T. (2015). Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom. Regnery Publishing.
¹¹ Oregon Health Authority. (2023). Death with Dignity Act Annual Reports.
¹² Sumption, J. (2014). UK Supreme Court Judgment in R (Nicklinson) v Ministry of Justice.
¹³ See e.g. California Penal Code §187(a); contrast with permissive state abortion laws.

Originally published on Selsey Substack

Legally Dead: The Collapse of Moral Law in Britain

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“If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Ps. 11:3)

This week, the United Kingdom has crossed a dreadful moral threshold. In the span of just a few days, Parliament has voted first to decriminalise abortion—effectively permitting self-managed termination of life in the womb up to birth—and then to legalise so-called “assisted dying,” a misleading phrase for what is in truth state-sanctioned suicide. Two votes. One message: life is no longer sacred.

When legislators permit the destruction of the most vulnerable—the unborn child, the despairing sick, the elderly whose existence has become burdensome—they do not merely alter policy. They strike at the heart of justice itself. The right to life is not one among many rights—it is the ground upon which all others stand. Without it, the edifice of rights becomes a hollow facade, masking cruelty with euphemism.

The Illusion of Compassion

It is claimed, in both cases, that these measures represent progress—greater autonomy for women, greater dignity for the dying. But autonomy cannot mean the right to destroy another, nor can dignity be made dependent upon the absence of suffering. To offer death as a solution to distress is not compassion; it is surrender. It betrays a society that has forgotten how to suffer with, how to love, and how to protect.

St. Thomas Aquinas taught that human law derives its legitimacy from the natural law, which is itself a participation in the eternal law of God.¹ When a human law contradicts the natural law—when it permits murder under the guise of mercy—it is no true law, but rather an act of violence cloaked in legality.

And as Pope Pius XII solemnly declared:

“The life of one who is innocent is untouchable, and any direct attempt… to kill… is a violation of one of the fundamental laws without which secure human society is impossible.”²

The votes cast in Westminster this week were not victories for justice, but capitulations to despair.Subscribed

Death by Emotionalism

The culture of death in Britain was not ushered in by force of logic, constitutional principle, or sober legal debate. It was won—decisively—through emotional manipulation. The parliamentary votes that removed legal protection from the unborn and invited suicide into the framework of care were secured not by reasoned argument but by the power of sentiment, tears, and selective storytelling.

In place of philosophy, we were given pathos. In place of principle, personalities. Members of Parliament stood not to defend justice, but to emote. And those who dared to speak of moral absolutes or natural law were treated not as defenders of tradition, but as heartless ideologues resisting “progress.”

This is not lawmaking. It is theatre.

One need not deny the suffering of individuals to see the danger in allowing public policy to be dictated by feeling. Compassion is not the enemy of justice—but sentimentality often is. For sentimentality demands outcomes that feel good rather than ones that are good, and it sacrifices the unseen, the unborn, and the inconvenient at the altar of emotional relief. In the absence of objective moral standards, emotion becomes tyrant.

The great irony is that modern man, having prided himself on “rationalism,” now makes law by anecdote and weeps his way into barbarism. As Pope Pius XII warned:

“It is not emotion or feeling that guides to the truth, but reason enlightened by faith.”³

And yet, it was the secular philosophers themselves who paved the way. David Hume famously wrote:

“Morality is determined by sentiment… Reason itself is utterly impotent in this particular.”⁴

A culture that accepts such a premise will eventually legislate on the basis of tears, not truth.

The sanctity of life is not subject to public sentiment. The right to live is not decided by polls, headlines, or individual hardship. Yet this week, Britain proved that enough tears in a Westminster chamber can wash away centuries of moral consensus and jurisprudential restraint.

Death is now defended not by argument but by appeal to emotion. And so, once again, as in the twilight of Rome and the decadence of every fallen age, man exchanges the truth of God for the lie of his own feelings (cf. Rom. 1:25).

Our Failure to Embrace Suffering

At the heart of both these votes—abortion and assisted suicide—lies a deeper spiritual crisis: our culture’s utter inability to make sense of suffering. In casting off the Cross, we have lost not only our theology of sacrifice but also our capacity for endurance, for compassion rightly ordered, and for hope that transcends pain.

We do not suffer well because we do not know why we suffer.

Modern man, having severed suffering from redemption, now seeks only to eliminate it—no matter the cost. But where suffering cannot be eliminated, the sufferer is. What cannot be fixed is discarded. What cannot be explained is hidden. And so the unwanted child and the despairing patient are treated not as persons to be loved, but as problems to be solved—by termination.

This is not love. It is spiritual cowardice.

Our ancestors knew suffering as a school of virtue, a mystery to be united to the Cross, and a means of purifying the soul. The saints called it a blessing. The martyrs bore it as witness. Christ Himself sanctified it, not by erasing it, but by embracing it. “Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered” (Heb. 5:8).

But in a society that worships control, comfort, and autonomy, suffering is seen only as an indignity—a failure of systems, a defect of life. And so we flee from it. We medicate it, mask it, and ultimately legislate it out of existence. What remains is a culture too fragile to face sorrow and too sterile to bring forth joy.

Until we recover the truth that suffering can be redemptive, we will continue to kill those whom suffering touches most. A nation that cannot suffer cannot love.

What Remains of Human Rights?

The very notion of universal human rights is grounded in the premise that life has intrinsic value—value not conferred by health, autonomy, or utility, but by the simple fact of our shared humanity. When society begins to assign worth based on perceived quality of life, it begins to dismantle the foundation of justice itself.

The early Fathers knew this. St. Gregory of Nyssa insisted that “the murder of a man is the greatest of crimes, for he bears in himself the image of God.”⁵ Tertullian, facing a pagan culture that practiced infanticide and abortion, declared: “He who will one day be a man is already one.”⁶

Our modern culture has reversed this. Those most obviously human—the child whose heartbeat can be heard, the patient whose voice has grown weak—are redefined as burdens, liabilities, problems to be managed. Their deaths are facilitated not in secrecy, but under the protection of law.

The Apathy of Apostasy

There is a silence more dangerous than outright heresy—a silence that clothes itself in reasonableness, civility, and theological ambiguity. It is the silence of apostasy, not declared but lived: the practical abandonment of the Gospel in order to preserve comfort, reputation, or relevance. This is the silence that now dominates much of Christianity in Britain.

While Parliament was debating whether to permit the killing of the unborn up to the point of birth, and the deliberate facilitation of suicide in the name of compassion, where were the voices of Christian leaders? Where was the Church’s sacred duty to “preach the word… in season and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2)? A handful spoke, and fewer still protested. Most remained hidden—paralysed by past failures, afraid of media backlash, or cowed by secular expectations of religious “neutrality.” This is not humility. It is abdication.

Secularisation has not simply removed the Church from public favour; it has exposed the frailty of our witness. The rise of a cold and calculating rationalism has persuaded many Christians that moral conviction must be shelved in favour of dialogical tone, or that faith is a private matter unsuited to the public square. But the apostles did not die to preserve pluralism. They preached a Gospel that was offensive, demanding, and utterly incompatible with the paganism of their day.

And now, as our nation slides deeper into a culture of sanctioned death, many who bear the name of Christ do so without the Cross. They want credibility without martyrdom, influence without confrontation. But the blood of the martyrs was not spilled so that bishops might take refuge in parliamentary neutrality, nor so that clergy might shrink from the controversy of truth.

The great failure of contemporary Christianity in the United Kingdom is not a lack of access to media, nor a shortage of theological resources. It is a failure of nerve. The fear of controversy has eclipsed the fear of God. And so we are left with polite press releases, sterile ecumenical handwringing, and a witness that says nothing precisely when it must cry out.

This is not the apostolic Church. It is the lukewarm Church which our Lord warns He will “vomit out” (Apoc. 3:16).

Now is the time for repentance—for a return to the boldness of the martyrs, the fidelity of the confessors, and the uncompromising proclamation of Christ’s Lordship over life and death. For if we will not defend the innocent, then we are no longer worthy to bear His Name.Subscribed

The Failure of the Secular Experiment

But as much as this moment reveals the failure of the Church to bear prophetic witness, it is just as damning a verdict on the secular experiment itself. For decades, the architects of modern Britain have promised that a society freed from religion would become more enlightened, more humane, and more just. What we see instead is a civilisation that has grown cold, frightened, and profoundly discompassionate.

The self-proclaimed humanists, atheists, and rationalists who led the charge for a post-Christian public square have not replaced the Gospel with moral clarity or courage. On the contrary, they have presided over a descent into utilitarianism, euphemism, and legalised abandonment. They have reduced compassion to consent, and justice to bureaucratic compliance.

It is no coincidence that in a culture which no longer fears God, death is increasingly offered as a solution. For when man exiles his Creator, he inevitably redefines himself—not as a being made for eternity, but as a biological organism to be optimised, managed, or extinguished. As Dostoevsky warned: “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.” But what secularists rarely consider is that when everything is permitted, compassion is no longer required.

Atheism promised emancipation; it has delivered moral paralysis. Secular humanism claimed to cherish dignity; it now permits the killing of the voiceless and the despairing. In the absence of God, man has become not sovereign but expendable. And those who once claimed the moral high ground now cower behind procedural justifications and speak in the sterile idiom of “personal choice.”

There is no moral courage in this. No prophetic vision. No love. Only silence, legality, and the efficient management of despair.

We were told that man could be good without God. But now, with God formally excluded from our laws and institutions, we are left with a society that has no coherent answer to evil, no consolation in suffering, and no defence of the innocent.

What Can the Righteous Do?

The Psalmist cries out: “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Ps. 11:3). It is a cry many faithful hearts now echo. But the answer is not despair. The Church must speak even more clearly, live even more sacrificially, and love even more fiercely. For in the words of St. John Chrysostom: “The greater the darkness, the more the light is seen.”⁷

We must become the sanctuary our society no longer offers. If Parliament will no longer defend life, then families, parishes, and faithful communities must become places where every life—weak or strong, born or unborn, joyful or suffering—is received as a gift from God.

To those now tempted to despair, I say this: do not give up. Do not retreat into bitterness or silence. Let this moment sharpen our vision and renew our mission. For we are not called to be conformed to this world, but to bear witness to a Kingdom in which death is defeated and life is sacred.

In this dark hour, we are called not to abandon the battlefield, but to remain—faithful, prayerful, unyielding. For the Judge of all the earth shall do right (Gen. 18:25), and the blood of the innocent cries out still.

And it is time—long past time—for orthodox Christians, like other religionists, to speak boldly once more into the public discourse. We are not second-class citizens. We enjoy the same civil rights and legal protections afforded to every protected characteristic: the right to speak, to believe, to worship, to live and share our culture without coercion or silence. The Christian vision of life does not demand the destruction of others—it seeks the common good and the supreme good of all.

Footnotes

¹ Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 93–95.
² Pius XII, Address to Italian Catholic Doctors, AAS 32 (1940), pp. 465–468.
³ Pius XII, Address to the International Congress on Psychotherapy, 13 April 1953.
⁴ David Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 1751, Section I.
⁵ Gregory of Nyssa, De Hominis Opificio, ch. 5.
⁶ Tertullian, Apologeticus, ch. 9.
⁷ John Chrysostom, Homilies on John, Homily 23.

Originally published on Selsey Substack

A Pastoral Epistle on the Sanctity of Life in the Face of the End of Life Bill (UK)

Published on by TheOldRomanLeave a comment

A Pastoral Epistle on the Sanctity of Life in the Face of the End of Life Bill

To the Faithful of Christ, dear brothers and sisters in the Lord,

Grace, mercy, and peace be with you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

In these critical times, we address you with pastoral concern and apostolic conviction. On April 25, 2025, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is scheduled for further debate and voting in the House of Commons. Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who introduced the bill, has confirmed this date and emphasized the importance of proceeding without delay.

As shepherds of souls and witnesses to the Gospel of life, we cannot remain silent in the face of legislation that seeks to legalize the deliberate ending of innocent human life. The implications of this bill—however framed in terms of compassion and autonomy—are profound and call for clear teaching, faithful resistance, and fervent prayer.

Life Is Not Ours to End
The proposed bill seeks to permit adults with mental capacity, diagnosed with a terminal illness and a prognosis of six months or less, to request medical assistance to die. Such an act, regardless of intention, constitutes the moral equivalent of suicide, and the cooperation of others in that act is euthanasia. The Church has consistently condemned both.

From the earliest centuries, the Christian tradition has held that life is a gift entrusted to us by God, not a possession to be disposed of at will. “You are not your own; you were bought at a price” (1 Cor 6:19–20). St. Augustine taught with clarity: “He who knows it is unlawful to kill himself may nevertheless do so if he is ordered by Him whose commands we may not neglect.”¹ His words underscore that life and death are under divine sovereignty.

The Cross Is Not a Curse
The suffering of terminal illness is real. It can be frightening, painful, and isolating. But Christ has gone before us. The Cross was not a failure; it was the place of redemption. Those who endure suffering in union with Christ participate in His saving Passion.

The Roman Catechism, issued by the Council of Trent, teaches us that suffering borne patiently is pleasing to God and a source of grace: “The other part of this Commandment is mandatory, commanding us to cherish sentiments of charity, concord, and friendship towards our enemies, to have peace with all men, and finally, to endure with patience every inconvenience which the unjust aggression of others may inflict.”² To propose death as a solution to suffering is not only a false mercy; it is a rejection of the redemptive value of suffering, which has always been part of Christian witness.

The Role of the Physician and the Meaning of Care
This bill also distorts the very vocation of the physician. Traditionally, doctors have sworn the Hippocratic Oath, promising never to administer poison, even when requested. The Church has consistently upheld this moral boundary. Pope Pius XII taught that while one may accept palliative means to alleviate pain, “It is not right to deprive the dying person of consciousness in order to eliminate suffering if this renders impossible a final act of love for God.”³

In his 1954 address to the World Medical Association, Pius XII emphasized the natural moral law, affirming that euthanasia has been officially condemned.⁴

The Slippery Slope and the Silence of Society
Advocates of assisted suicide often claim strict limitations. But once society concedes that it is lawful to end life to alleviate suffering, the logic inevitably widens. We have seen this in nations where euthanasia was introduced with similar promises—only to expand later to include psychological distress, non-terminal illness, and even minors. St. Thomas Aquinas warned that the toleration of lesser evils often paves the way for greater ones: “Human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue. Wherefore human laws do not forbid all vices.”⁵

Moreover, such laws erode the fabric of society. They suggest to the aged and the vulnerable that their lives are a burden. But as Pope Pius XI taught in Casti Connubii, life is sacred “not only in its beginning and development but also in its natural termination.”⁶ We must build a civilization of charity where no one is abandoned, and where each soul is cherished until God Himself calls them home.

Our Christian Witness and Duty
Dear faithful, this is not merely a civil matter. It is a spiritual trial. In times like these, we are called to be salt and light, to give public testimony to the Gospel of life.

We urge you:

  • Pray earnestly for our legislators, doctors, and those approaching death.
  • Write respectfully to your Members of Parliament, urging them to reject this bill and protect the most vulnerable.
  • Visit the sick and elderly, accompany the dying, and support Catholic hospice initiatives.
  • Instruct the young in the sacredness of life, and the nobility of offering suffering to God.

St. John Chrysostom wrote: “The one who honors the sick honors Christ Himself.” Let this be our response to a culture that tempts the suffering to despair: to meet them not with poison, but with prayer; not with death, but with love.

Conclusion: Choose Life
We must remind our fellow citizens and lawmakers of the ancient words of Moses: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live” (Deut 30:19). Let no Christian be found among those who choose otherwise.

May Our Lady, Health of the Sick, and St. Joseph, Patron of the Dying, intercede for us all. And may Christ our King, who conquered death by His own death, fill you with courage, fidelity, and peace.

May Our Lady, Comfort of the Afflicted, intercede for us.

Yours in Christ,

S. Isidori Episcopi Confessoris et Ecclesiæ Doctoris
Brichtelmestunensis MMXXV

Footnotes
¹ St. Augustine, City of God, Book I, Chapter 26.
² Catechism of the Council of Trent, Part III, The Fifth Commandment.
³ Pius XII, Address to Catholic Physicians and Anesthesiologists, November 24, 1957.
⁴ Pius XII, Address to the World Medical Association, September 30, 1954.
⁵ St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I–II, q.96, a.2.
⁶ Pius XI, Casti Connubii, §64.

How to Contact Your MP Before the Assisted Dying Vote

Practical Guidance for Faithful Citizens

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is due for parliamentary debate and vote on April 25, 2025. Now is the time for faithful Catholics to speak out—clearly, charitably, and urgently. Here’s how to contact your MP effectively:

1. Find Your MP
Visit www.theyworkforyou.com or members.parliament.uk
Enter your postcode to find the name and contact details of your local MP.

2. Choose Your Method

  • Email is fastest. Most MPs can be reached at:
    firstname.lastname.mp@parliament.uk
    (e.g., jane.doe.mp@parliament.uk)
  • Write a Letter if you prefer a physical approach. Address it to:
    [MP’s Name]
    House of Commons
    London
    SW1A 0AA
  • Call the Constituency Office or attend a local surgery (drop-in meeting). Times are usually listed on the MP’s official site.

3. Keep It Short and Personal

  • Start by stating you’re a constituent (i.e., you live in their area). MPs prioritize messages from their own voters.
  • Use your own words—this carries more weight than a form letter.
  • Share why you personally oppose assisted suicide. You might mention:
    • The sanctity of life and Christian teaching.
    • Concerns about the pressure this may place on the elderly, disabled, or those with mental health struggles.
    • The role of true palliative care as a compassionate alternative.
    • Fears of “mission creep” from other countries where similar laws have expanded.

4. Be Respectful and Clear

You don’t need to be a policy expert. Speak sincerely, and end by asking them to vote against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on April 25.

5. Follow Up

A short thank-you or reply if they respond can build trust—even if they disagree. If they express support for the bill, clarify your concerns respectfully and encourage them to reconsider.

Your voice matters. MPs often cite messages from constituents when making their decisions. As faithful citizens, let us not be silent when the vulnerable are at risk. As St. Paul reminds us, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).

For further moral guidance and resources, see the Anscombe Bioethics Centre at bioethics.org.uk.

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