London, England, Jan 19, 2005 / 22:00 pm
The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, leader of the world's 70 million Anglicans, said euthanasia is unacceptable because it excludes God from certain aspects of life.
Reuters reported that the archbishop said euthanasia,which recognizes the legal right to assisted dying, could eventually entail a responsibility on others to kill.
"What anyone's life means is not exclusively his own affair. He lives in relation to others and to a society," Archbishop Williams wrote in an article in the Times.
"The right to be spared avoidable pain is beyond debate, as is the right to say yes or no to certain treatments,” he said. "But once that has mutated into a right to expect assistance in dying, the responsibility of others is involved."
The said an individual's decision to end their life would be the same as saying there was some aspect of human life where God had no place. It would be “an admission that faith had failed," he said.
Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland have legalized assisted euthanasia.