LAST week, the journalist Lewis Goodall prompted a modest puff of controversy by arguing that some MPs are being dishonest about why they oppose assisted dying reform.

In essence, he argues the reason many politicians oppose assisted dying owe much more to their private religious beliefs than they’ve been prepared to admit in public.

He suggests MPs “should make clear” when their votes have been swayed by these convictions, so the electorate can ­understand the real motives behind their efforts – unsuccessfully in the House of Commons this week – to stymie the reforms proposed by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.

In parallel, Holyrood has now also ­begun taking evidence on the member’s bill ­introduced by Orkney MSP Liam ­McArthur, below, to legalise assisted dying in ­limited ­circumstances. This too seems ­guaranteed to ­surface similar debates about politics, religion, and the proper ­relationship between the two.

(Image: Jane Barlow)

In both parliaments, the issue of assisted dying has been dubbed a conscience vote and will not be whipped along party-political lines. But what kind of reasons should our politicians’ consciences be ­considering? How should religious MPs or MSPs handle the thorny issue of where their faith belongs in the public sphere? How should religious groups present their opposition to legislating for assisted dying? And how should the rest of us react to the arguments they make?

Profound questions

These are profound questions of the ­relationship between not only church and state, but the role of religious ideas in a largely secular state. Treat them seriously.

The first thing to say is – you don’t need to be religious to oppose assisted dying, and I can understand a degree of defensiveness about presenting the issue in these terms. Perhaps the most articulate bloc ­resisting the latest attempts to create a ­limited framework for assisted dying north and south of the Border are disabled ­people’s organisations, representing people of faith and none.

Their arguments are rooted in the ­historic disregard our society has shown ­towards people with physical and ­mental ­impairments. They point out that ­sometimes and even often, intolerable lives are created not by the inevitable impact of living in a dying body or surviving with a........

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