John Wyatt on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

John Wyatt, Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, Cambridge Papers 19, 2 (June 2010).

The Jubilee Centre has made available the latest Cambridge Paper on euthanasia and assisted suicide by Professor John Wyatt.

Here is the summary:

‘The arguments in favour of the legalisation of assisted suicide and euthanasia are no longer focussed on unbearable suffering. Instead there is a rising demand for choice and control over the time and manner of our death, coupled with fears about the social and economic consequences of increasing numbers of elderly and dependent individuals. But there are strong medical, legal, social and theological reasons to oppose this new drive for suicide and euthanasia. The potent modern myth of the autonomous individual fails to match with the inescapable reality of human dependence and relationality. The increasing public support for the legalisation of medical killing provides an urgent challenge to the medical and legal professions and to the Christian community as a whole. Are Christians capable of living out a practical and countercultural demonstration of the preciousness of human life expressed in human interdependence, personal commitment and burden-sharing?’

John Wyatt – a long-standing member of the board of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity – is profiled in EG 26 (June 2010), a publication of LICC, available here.