(LifeSiteNews) — In the wake of the November 29 vote in favour of assisted suicide by the U.K. Parliament, a quote from the American theologian Stanley Hauerwas circulated on social media: “In a hundred years, if Christians are identified as people who do not kill their children or the elderly, we will have done well.”
Incidentally, I opened a chapter of my latest book How We Got Here: A Guide to Our Anti-Christian Culture with that quote – and increasingly, it looks as if Hauerwas will live long enough to see his prescient words fulfilled.
Sky News recently published a breakdown of how the MPs voted, and it was revealing to see the role of religious belief in the outcome. Parliamentarians do not always publicly broadcast their personal religious views, but when they are formally initiated into the Commons, they can “either choose a religious text to swear on or make a ‘solemn affirmation’ with no religious text.” According to Sky News:
Among the 266 MPs who didn’t swear on a religious text when they joined the 2024 Parliament, the bill received 192 votes in favour and 60 votes against, with 14 not voting. Among the 377 MPs who did make a religious oath, a majority voted against the bill. Across all religions, 138 voted in favour and 215 against.
Of the 266 MPs who made a secular affirmation, 72% voted for the assisted dying bill, 22% voted against. Of the 377 MPs who swore a religious oath, 57% voted against and 37% voted for.
READ: UK Parliament votes in favor of bill allowing doctors to kill their patients
In short, whether or not someone professed religious views impacted how they voted – as it should. Stephen Evans, the chief executive of the National Secular Society, promptly pounced on this data. “An MP’s personal faith shouldn’t limit others’ choices,” he opined cluelessly. Of course, Evans, too, has a faith – it just does not happen to be Christian or religious. His X bio states his belief in “Human Rights,” a concept totally unsupported by a “secular” worldview.
Evans’ feed is filled with his deeply-held beliefs on animal rights, the right to suicide, and his moral condemnations of various religious groups – but of course, an atheist has no objective grounding for any of these moral claims beyond personal preference. If there is no lawgiver, there is no law. If God doesn’t exist, suicide isn’t immoral – but if God doesn’t exist, nothing is objectively immoral. Including, for that matter, voting to keep assisted suicide illegal to protect the vulnerable and people with disabilities.
Undergraduate atheist moralizing would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous – and if it weren’t being leveraged in the service of a dangerous suicide regime.
It is true that we can simply defer to public opinion or raw democracy, but without an underlying belief system democracy becomes, as one wag put it, two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Which, incidentally, is how many vulnerable people feel about the recent assisted suicide vote, which is why people in wheelchairs were openly weeping outside of Westminster when the news of the outcome reached them.
READ: UK seniors would have huge tax incentive to choose assisted suicide if it became legal
Many secularists despised the “Christian Right”; in the coming years, I suspect many will come to realize that Christianity was a bulwark against many evils that are slowly but steadily making a reappearance. Some, including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Niall Ferguson, and Charles Murray are already reaching that conclusion – Hirsi Ali, once a New Atheist, recently converted to Christianity. Infanticide and euthanasia were common in pre-Christian cultures.
The vote on November 29 indicates that such practices may become common in the post-Christian culture of the West, as well. The vulnerable recognize this, and they fear it – that is why every single one of the U.K.’s more than 350 disability rights groups oppose assisted suicide. Evans obviously feels differently – his religious belief in his own autonomy trumps their fears.
Some, it seems, are eager for the furnace.
