Murder in the bath, the blind man, and a sacked policeman.

The facts for those unfamiliar with them: Gavin Ashenden - 'New English Catholic' is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In the Image and Likeness of God. Those of us who hold to a Catholic understanding of the human person — seeing each life as sacred because it is made in the image of God — have, for decades now, found ourselves resisting a growing secular pressure to legalise euthanasia. The Arguments The arguments are by now familiar. On the one hand, we hear appeals to autonomy, freedom of choice, and the understandable desire to avoid suffering. On the other, there remains a deep moral conviction that life and death are not ours to dispose of at will — and that once the boundary is crossed, the consequences are neither contained nor benign. Experience bears this out. In Canada, there are now documented cases of disabled individuals being offered euthanasia because it is cheaper than providing basic support such as accessible housing. In the Netherlands, even teenagers suffering from depression have been granted euthanasia. What were once presented as tightly safeguarded exceptions have, in practice, expanded in ways that place the most vulnerable at risk. The argument, therefore, is no longer theoretical. It is grounded in real examples of systems in which safeguards have failed, and where the logic of euthanasia has begun to erode the dignity it was supposed to protect. Professor David Jones - In this conversation, I speak with Professor David Jones, Professor of Bioethics at St Mary’s University, London, and one of the central figures in the campaign against euthanasia in the United Kingdom.