RSB8Matters of Life and Death: Abortion, Life After Death and Euthanasia

Abortion is the deliberate ending of a pregnancy, so that it does not result in the birth of a child. (A miscarriage is when a pregnancy ends naturally; it is not abortion.)

• The Abortion Act 1967 (England, Wales and Scotland): an abortion is legal if two doctors agree in good faith that it meets one of the legal grounds, such as a risk to the physical or mental health of the woman or her existing children.
• Time limit: 24 weeks for most grounds (since 1990). There is no time limit if the woman’s life is at risk, to prevent grave permanent injury to her, or if there is a substantial risk that the baby would be born seriously disabled.
• The 2026 change (England and Wales): since 29 April 2026 (Crime and Policing Act 2026, section 241), a woman commits no offence by acting in relation to her own pregnancy. Anyone else who carries out an abortion outside the Act can still be prosecuted, and the rules on doctors and time limits are unchanged.
• Northern Ireland: abortion was decriminalised in 2019; since 2020 it has been available on request up to 12 weeks.
• Older books and videos say women in England and Wales can be prosecuted for ending their own pregnancy. That is now out of date.
• Last checked: 6 November 2026.

Key dates in UK law on abortion and assisted dying

Abortion

The deliberate ending of a pregnancy, so that it does not result in the birth of a child.

Decriminalise

To stop an act being a criminal offence.

• Pro-life means believing the unborn child has a right to life that should be protected. Pro-choice means believing the woman should have the right to decide.
• The Catholic Church is pro-life: human life begins at conception and is sacred from then on, so direct abortion is always gravely wrong. Humanae Vitae (Pope Paul VI, 1968), paragraph 14, says “all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons”, is “to be absolutely excluded”.
• Pro-life sources: God knew Jeremiah before he was born (Jeremiah 1:5); “You knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13, World English Bible, British Edition); “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13); every human is made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27).
• Double effect: Catholic teaching allows treatment to save the mother’s life, such as removing a cancerous womb, even if the pregnancy ends as a result, because the aim is to save her, not to end the pregnancy.
• Orthodox Christians and many evangelical Protestants are also pro-life, though many accept abortion when the mother’s life is in danger.
• The Church of England is strongly opposed to abortion in principle, but accepts it may be the lesser of two evils in some cases, for example a serious risk to the mother’s life or health.
• Pro-choice Christians, a minority, believe God gave people free will and conscience, and that the woman is best placed to make a hard decision before God. They point to Jesus’ compassion and the command to love your neighbour (Matthew 22:39).

Different views on abortion (simplified)

Pro-life

The view that the unborn child has a right to life that should be protected.

Pro-choice

The view that a woman should have the right to decide whether to continue a pregnancy.

Humanae Vitae

Pope Paul VI’s letter (1968) on human life and family planning; paragraph 14 rules out direct abortion.

Double effect

The Catholic principle that an action with a good aim can be right even if a foreseen side effect is bad.

• Bodily autonomy: many atheists and Humanists argue that a woman has the right to decide what happens to her own body, and that no one should be forced to continue a pregnancy.
• When is the foetus a person? Many argue that an early embryo is a potential person, not yet a person with interests of its own, so the woman’s interests come first, especially early in pregnancy.
• Quality of life and consequences: the welfare of the woman, her existing children and the child who would be born all count. Banning abortion doesn’t stop it, but makes it unsafe. Humanists UK supports legal access to abortion and backed the 2026 change.
• Not all non-religious people agree: some atheists oppose abortion because they believe the foetus is a human life from early on, whatever its origin.
• Situation ethics (Joseph Fletcher, 1966): there is one absolute rule, to do the most loving thing (agape) in each situation. In some cases, such as rape, danger to the mother or a severe disability, a follower may decide abortion is the most loving choice. Fletcher was an Anglican priest, so some Christians use it too.
• Christian responses: the unborn child is a person known by God (Jeremiah 1:5), so the most loving act must include the child too; autonomy has limits because life is a gift, not a possession; situation ethics is too subjective, as people may call their own wishes “loving”; Christians can support women in crisis and offer adoption; but some Christians accept situation ethics in extreme cases.

Situation ethics

Joseph Fletcher’s theory that the right action is the most loving one (agape) in each situation.

Agape

Selfless, unconditional love; the one rule in situation ethics.

Autonomy

A person’s right to make decisions about their own life and body.

What Christians believe happens after death (judgement, heaven, hell and purgatory) is in the Christian Beliefs topic on salvation and life after death. This topic covers the teachings and arguments that support the belief, and arguments against it.

• The resurrection of Jesus is the main reason: “Christ has been raised from the dead. He became the first fruit of those who are asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20, World English Bible, British Edition). The “first fruit” means others will follow.
• Ephesians 2:1–10: people were “dead in transgressions and sins” (2:1), but God “made us alive together with Christ” (2:5) and “raised us up with him” (2:6). Eternal life is a gift: “by grace you have been saved through faith” (2:8), not earned by good works.
• Jesus’ teaching: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies” (John 11:25). “In my Father’s house are many homes” (John 14:2).
• On the cross, Jesus told one of the criminals, “today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).
• The creeds (the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds) state belief in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
• Different Christian understandings: most Christians believe in a resurrection body (1 Corinthians 15), not just a surviving soul; Catholics also believe in purgatory; Christians differ about whether hell is everlasting.

Resurrection

Rising from the dead to a new, transformed life.

Eternal life

Life with God that does not end, which Christians believe begins through faith.

Grace

God’s free and undeserved love and help.

Pearson’s spec names six arguments: remembered lives, the paranormal, logic, reward, comfort and meeting loved ones. Christians don’t all use all six.

• Remembered lives: some people, often young children, claim to remember a previous life in detail. This suggests something survives death. But most Christians reject reincarnation: people die once and then face judgement (Hebrews 9:27).
• The paranormal: near-death experiences (a tunnel, light, meeting dead relatives), ghosts and mediums. Some Christians see near-death experiences as glimpses of heaven; many are wary of ghosts and mediums, because the Bible forbids consulting the dead (Deuteronomy 18:10–11).
• Logic: if God is just, the wrongs of this life must be put right somewhere; and many argue the mind or soul is more than the physical brain, so it can survive the body.
• Reward: life after death means good is rewarded and evil punished, as in the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31–46). Without it, many feel this life would be unfair.
• Comfort: belief gives hope to the dying and the grieving, and helps people face death without fear.
• Meeting loved ones: many Christians hope to be reunited with family and friends who have died. Paul tells Christians not to grieve like those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13).
• Why it matters to Christians: it gives life a purpose beyond this world; it encourages living by Jesus’ teaching, knowing God will judge; it shapes funerals, which speak of resurrection; it gives every life lasting value.

Arguments for and against life after death, and Christian responses

Paranormal

Events that seem to go beyond normal scientific explanation, such as near-death experiences or ghosts.

Near-death experience

An experience reported by someone who came close to death, such as seeing a light or meeting relatives who have died.

Reincarnation

Being reborn in a new body after death; most Christians reject it.

• 1 Peter 3:18–22, Pearson’s named source: Christ was “put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit” (3:18, World English Bible, British Edition). Baptism saves “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (3:21), who is now “at the right hand of God” (3:22).
• Christians use this passage to answer the arguments: Jesus really died and was really raised, so death is not the end; and the risen Christ rules over every power, so belief is not a human invention to control people.
• Non-religious views are not all the same: many atheists and Humanists believe death is the end of the person, and that this makes the one life we have more precious, not less meaningful.

Social control

Using ideas or rules to keep people obedient; Marx said religion did this.

Fraudulent

Deliberately deceptive or fake.

Euthanasia means ending someone’s life to relieve suffering, for example from an incurable illness. It comes from the Greek for “a good death”.

• Voluntary: the person asks to die. Non-voluntary: the person can’t ask, for example in a long-term coma, and others decide. Involuntary: the person could ask but isn’t asked, or doesn’t want to die; almost everyone sees this as murder.
• Active: a deliberate act ends the life, such as a lethal injection. Passive: treatment that is only prolonging life is withheld or withdrawn, so the person dies of their illness.
• Assisted dying (assisted suicide) is different: a doctor provides the means, but the patient takes the final action themselves. In euthanasia, someone else ends the life.
• UK law: active euthanasia is treated as murder or manslaughter. Helping someone take their own life is a crime in England and Wales (Suicide Act 1961). Doctors may lawfully stop treatment that can no longer help, and give strong painkillers to relieve pain.
• Attempts to change the law: a Westminster bill for terminally ill adults passed the Commons (314–291, June 2025) but ran out of time in the Lords in April 2026; a new bill was defeated (270–286) on 11 September 2026. Scotland’s bill fell (57–69) on 17 March 2026.
• So assisted dying and euthanasia are illegal everywhere in the UK. Some countries allow forms of them, such as the Netherlands, Canada and Switzerland.
• Last checked: 6 November 2026.

Types of euthanasia

Euthanasia

Ending a person’s life to relieve suffering.

Active euthanasia

A deliberate act to end a life, such as a lethal injection.

Passive euthanasia

Withholding or withdrawing treatment that is only prolonging life.

Assisted dying

Providing the means for a person to end their own life; they take the final action.

• Sanctity of life: life is a gift from God, so only God should decide when it ends. “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away” (Job 1:21, World English Bible, British Edition); “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13).
• Job 2:1–10: Job, a good man, is struck with painful sores. His wife says, “Renounce God, and die” (2:9). Job refuses: “Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” (2:10).
• Interpretation 1: suffering is to be faced with faith, not ended by choosing death. Job trusts God even in pain, so many Christians believe a person should not end their life to escape suffering.
• Interpretation 2: Job doesn’t pretend his suffering is good; later in the book he cries out honestly to God. Some Christians take this to mean God understands suffering, and that relieving it, through good care, is right.
• The Catholic Church and the Church of England oppose active euthanasia and assisted dying, and their leaders opposed the 2024–26 bills. They fear that the elderly, disabled or ill could feel pressure to die so as not to be a burden.
• But many Christians accept stopping treatment that is overly burdensome, and pain relief that may shorten life if the aim is to relieve pain (double effect).
• Some Christians support assisted dying with strict safeguards, out of compassion for people in great suffering. For example, George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, said in 2014 that he had come to support a change in the law for the terminally ill; the Church of England itself remains opposed.

Compassion

Feeling for someone’s suffering and wanting to help.

Safeguards

Rules meant to protect people, such as needing two doctors and a judge to agree.

A hospice cares for people who are dying, and supports their families. Palliative care relieves pain and other symptoms rather than trying to cure the illness.

• Dame Cicely Saunders, a Christian nurse, social worker and doctor, founded St Christopher’s Hospice in London in 1967, the first modern hospice.
• Hospices care for the whole person: physical pain, fears and emotions, family and practical worries, and spiritual needs, for people of any faith or none.
• Why Christians support them: they protect the sanctity of life while showing love; they follow Jesus, who cared for the sick, and the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30–37); every person keeps their dignity as made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27); chaplains help people prepare for death with the hope of resurrection.
• The Christian alternative to euthanasia: if pain can be controlled and people feel cared for, they need not feel they must choose death. Saunders is often quoted as telling patients, “You matter because you are you, and you matter to the end of your life.”
• Christians in action: many hospices began as Christian projects; churches raise money for them, and Christians volunteer and work in them.
• The other side: not everyone can get a hospice place, and some pain can’t be fully relieved, so supporters of assisted dying say hospices are not enough on their own.

Hospice

A place or service that cares for people who are dying, and supports their families.

Palliative care

Care that relieves pain and other symptoms, rather than trying to cure an illness.

• Autonomy: many atheists and Humanists argue that adults with mental capacity should be free to decide how and when their life ends, especially if they are terminally ill.
• Dignity and quality of life: when suffering can’t be relieved and there is no hope of recovery, ending life may be kinder than prolonging it. Humanists UK campaigns for a legal right to assisted dying with safeguards.
• Safeguards can work: supporters point to countries where assisted dying is legal and regulated.
• Non-religious people who oppose a change: some disability rights campaigners and doctors fear that disabled, elderly or poor people would feel pressure to die, and that safeguards could weaken over time (the “slippery slope”).
• Situation ethics: the most loving action (agape) depends on the case. For someone in unbearable pain who asks to die, a follower may decide that helping them is the loving choice; in another case, the loving choice may be good palliative care.
• Christian responses: life is God’s gift, not ours to end (“you are not your own”, 1 Corinthians 6:19); suffering can have meaning and need not be faced alone; hospices show compassion without ending life; a law would put pressure on the vulnerable; love means protecting everyone, not only the person asking. Some Christians agree with the compassion argument and support a change in the law.

Mental capacity

The ability to understand information and make a decision.

Slippery slope

The argument that one change will lead step by step to worse changes.