Choosing Life
The challenge of assisted suicide
Where:
Pusey House
St Giles, Oxford
When:
10am–5:30pm
4th December 2024
A one-day conference to consider Christian theological and moral philosophical responses to assisted suicide, bringing together theological academics, clergy, lawyers, and policymakers from a variety of Christian and philosophical traditions, and from across the political spectrum.
The conference is chaired by Pusey House’s Distinguished Scholar in Residence of the Centre for Theology, Law and Culture, the Rev’d Professor Nigel Biggar.
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Professor Biggar is the author of Aiming to Kill: the Ethics of Suicide and Euthanasia, of Behaving in Public: How to Do Christian Ethics, and of What's Wrong With Rights?
Speakers Include
Several Western democracies have legalised assisted suicide. Those advocating similar changes in the United Kingdom ground their arguments in compassion for the sick and suffering, a desire to minimise pain, and the claim that facilitating such choices around death is consonant with human dignity.
Opponents hold that assisted suicide is a violation of the dignity of human beings created in the image of God, and warn that legalisation will lead to immense moral and economic pressure being brought to bear upon the dying, the sick, the disabled, the elderly, and the poor.
How should politicians, intellectuals, and doctors in a Christian society respond to these claims? What does the Church teach? How can Christians engage in the political process on this issue? What influence might the Church of England exercise in Parliament?
Evensong
A post-conference Evensong, 5:30–6:15pm.
Professor Charles Foster (Exeter College, Oxford), a medical ethicist, philosopher, and practicing barrister, will deliver a short homily. Professor Foster is the author of Choosing Life, Choosing Death: The Tyranny of Autonomy in Medical Law and Ethics, and Medical Law: A Very Short Introduction.
