I am a Catholic member of the UK Labor Party. Assisted suicide is not the solution.

Parliament is set to vote on legalizing assisted suicide in the UK within days, after Labor’s Kim Leadbeater presented the bill to start the process. Keir Starmer, Prime Minister and leader of the Labor Party, revealed his own support measure despite this legislation being excluded from the party’s electoral program. The decision to support assisted suicide, a profound issue of conscience for many believers, risks alienating a diverse coalition of people who have long upheld the values ​​of life, community and care for the vulnerable.

I have been a member of the Labor Party since I was 15 and campaigned for Mrs Leadbeater when she first ran for office a few years after the murder of her sister, MP Jo Cox, in 2016. Whenever the party opposed the Conservative government’s cuts free school mealshe promised the return of his family doctor or committed to building public housing for the majority sensitiveI felt like I was living in hope. Labour’s core promise – a better material future for all – has strengthened my belief in a society rooted in compassion. But from the launch of a campaign in the Labor Party against legalized suicide, which I consider a form of social austerity, I encountered the refrain: “Your only allies are the Tories.”

Commitment to the most vulnerable in society is precisely why I remain loyal to the Labor Party. The party’s mission is a moral crusade, a movement to cultivate a caring society rather than a society consumed by profit and self-interest. Harold Wilson, the third Prime Minister of the Labor Party, once drew this direct line between Christianity and social democracy.

British Catholic bishops still hold this bond. Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth Chaplaincy letter “Thou shalt not kill” referred to compassion for the “most vulnerable” who were considered a “financial drain.” Rejecting the disordered “social obligation to end life when we become a burden” means maintaining an empathetic community.

This brings me to the legislative issues surrounding assisted suicide. The irreligious Mr Starmer caused a stir when he claimed he was “personally committed” to end-of-life care following his in-person meetings. The driving force behind this discussion was former MP Paul Blomfield, and his story is both heartbreaking and eye-opening. Mr Blomfield’s father took his own life unaided at the age of 87 after terminal lung cancer diagnosis.

“He is one of many people who have been failed by the current law (prohibiting assisted suicide),” Mr. Blomfield said of his father. There are countless families facing similar painful choices.

Still, our Christian obligation to oppose this bill comes from a deep understanding that we must protect life, even in the face of suffering and despair.

Just like Pope Francis did he emphasizedquoting Catechism of the Catholic Church“the will to cause death” is always evil. Based on this teaching, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a letter: “Samaritan Bonus” in 2020, which called on the faithful to “accompany the suffering person in the final stages of life” and fight against what she described as “the greatest misery”: “the loss of hope in the face of death.”

Even some who support the bill, such as Anglican MP Wes Streeting, do he admitted to a sense of “real conflict”, the worry that some vulnerable people may be forced to make a choice they would not otherwise make to want. And for a Catholic cabinet members like Mike Kane and Bridget Phillipson, this issue forces them to walk the line between faith and loyalty to leadership.

Politician environment “numbness of conscience” will cloud the search for moral truth. The good judgment of legislators depends on their ability to judge well. As Saint’s encyclical reminds us. John Paul II “The Splendor of Truth”, “freedom of conscience is never freedom “from” the truth, but always and only freedom “in” the truth.

Labor MPs should be able to express their conscience on sensitive social issues without strangling the party whip’s office or fearing that silent support given to one side of the debate. After all, work is a party of values. Let us allow these multi-faith values ​​to be respected. Leadership should be completely neutral and allow real debate to flourish.

Those who claim to represent religious voices in the party should not be afraid to show healthy opposition to the leadership. The party’s policy-making conference allowed vote following the cut in the winter fuel allowance, which has pushed more elderly people into poverty. However, it has not surveyed its members about assisted suicide.

Labor has a history of allowing silent, free votes on matters of conscience, from fox hunting under Tony Blair to assisted dying in 2015. Bill. Respect for personal beliefs should be the standard, not the exception.

Catholicism in British politics can never be about reclaiming a pre-Henrican past; only our church holds these memories. It’s about realizing values ​​that have little meaning – compassion, justice and commitment to the common good. This is the Labor Party that once helped my impoverished Irish ancestors integrate into Nottingham. This is the party that, in my opinion, can lead us into the future.

At its core, the Labor Party is not just a political party, but a moral movement. Catholics should feel at home. However, if the current approach continues, more Catholics will certainly do so leave party.

Read on: : In England and Wales, a bill to legalize assisted dying is opposed by the Church.