The following comes from an August 14 Catholic News Agency article:

 
Amid strong Christian opposition to the legalization of assisted suicide in the U.K., former Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey has broken away. He took part in a video for a group backing assisted suicide and claims that it is “profoundly Christian” to help people end their lives.

“There’s nothing noble about excruciating pain and I think we need as a nation to give people the right to decide their own fate,” the former head clergyman of the Church of England said in a video for the pro-assisted suicide campaign group Dignity in Dying.

“In my view it is a profoundly Christian and moral thing to devise a law that enables people if they so choose to end their lives with dignity,” he said, according to the U.K.-based Premier Christian Radio.

Under current law in the United Kingdom, it is illegal to encourage or to help someone attempt to take their own life. On September 11 the House of Commons will debate and vote on a private member’s bill to legalize assisted suicide.

Like the Catholic Church, the Church of England opposes changes to current U.K. law. On July 16 it urged churchgoers to contact their MPs to oppose the bill. James Newcome, the Anglican Bishop of Carlisle and the group’s lead bishop on health care, said legalization would create a “very uncertain and dangerous” future for the most vulnerable, such as the elderly and the disabled.