Blog12th March 2025

To Be or Not to Be: Viewing Assisted Dying Through the Lens of Faiths

Muhammed Afolabi

Muhammed Afolabi, Associate Professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Council member, reflects on the assisted dying debate through the lens of faith-based perspectives.

Assisted dying

The debate about assisted dying has accelerated in the UK as Westminster interrogates the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – responses and opinions are coming from the ranks and files of the society, each citing evidence for their views and concerns.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCOB) commissioned England’s first Citizens’ Jury to explore this topic – providing insights for the first time on not only what the public think about assisted dying, but why they think it. The two most important reasons the Jury gave for legalising assisted dying were to have the option to end your own life and to stop pain. We also found through a survey  that ethics and religious beliefs are the main factors for people who disagreed that assisted dying should be legalised.

To me, this positions faith-based perspectives as one of the most compelling lenses through which to assess the moral and ethical implications of such a policy.

Overall, faith traditions do not promote death as a solution. And they often urge caution over embracing it as one, arguing that once the line between life preservation and its cessation becomes blurred, it will become increasingly difficult to draw any boundaries there on.

Religion can also alter someone’s consideration of suffering. As profound and searing as it can be, through faith it can be viewed as an experience within which growth, meaning-making, and spiritual transformation take place. Through this rationale, any existential push to scrub ourselves free of suffering may be inadvertently denying our species the ability and opportunity to transcend this mortal plane. As such, it is understandable for faith leaders and institutions to refuse assisted dying and instead advise society to invest in palliative care and emotional support – helping those in their final days die with dignity.

Another common principle among religious traditions ranging from Christianity, Islam and Judaism to Hinduism, Buddhism, and many others — is that life is a sacred gift from a Higher power.

In Christianity, the notion that human beings are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) implies an obligation to maintain life, even when lives are filled with suffering.

Evidence suggests up to four out of ten Muslims and three out of ten Jews living in England find conversations about assisted dying difficult. This makes sense when you consider that the Qur’an states: “And do not kill the soul which Allah has made sacred” (Qur’an 17:33) and the Torah commandment “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13) includes the prohibition on taking one’s own life or helping others to do so.

Buddhism offers a complex view on assisted dying. On one hand, it recognises suffering (dukkha) as an essential aspect of life. However, on another, the cessation of suffering is a fundamental aim of Buddhist practice. That being said, wilfully ending life, one’s own or another’s, is broadly construed as violating the first precept: to refrain from taking life.

Hinduism offers a nuanced perspective on assisted dying. Life and death are considered two forms in a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (samsara) in the religion. Intentionally ending one’s life, or helping it to die, is popularly discouraged, since it is believed to obstruct the process of karma. But certain Hindu traditions do offer prayopavesa, a highly regulated self-chosen death by fasting, to people in the later stages of life who feel they have completed their worldly duties.

Faith-based opposition to assisted dying is clearly not a monolithic thing. But faith traditions have long centuries of wisdom and moral reflections to contribute to significant questions striking at the very heart of society. To ignore these perspectives is to reduce the public debate to an almost purely utilitarian calculus that ignores broader ethical considerations.

As the UK continues to debate the possibility of establishing a legal assisted dying service , religiosity encompassing perspectives must be included – they serve as a potent reminder of just how profound and compelling an ethical duty is placed on people to speak for those who are alive or dead.