George Carey’s thoughtless contribution to the ‘assisted dying’ debate

Well, I think nobody really assumed that George Carey was the brightest button on the bench of bishops but the old bumbler has still managed to put a rocket into the debate on assisted suicide. By dint of a former Archbishop of Canterbury changing horses on the issue, it has wrecked the notion that there’s some sort of consensus on the Anglican side about this contentious question. Whenever anyone tries to give a Christian account of the matter they’ll be met with the riposte, ah, but that’s not what the Archbishop says.

But what gets me is the notion that it has come as a revelation to poor old George that there are potent arguments from compassion on the assisted dying side. No one who listened to the late Tony Nicklinson’s account of his constricted life, no one who listens, in fact, to a description of anyone with locked-in syndrome, can remain unmoved.