Dr Rowan Williams warns against euthanasia

Dr Rowan Williams warned in the Times that a change could lead to elderly or terminally ill people being talked into dying for convenience.

His comments come after retired policeman Brian Blackburn was spared jail when he killed his terminally ill wife and tried to take his own life.

Mr Blackburn was given a suspended nine-month sentence at the Old Bailey.

'Avoidable pain'

Dr Williams said that the recognition of a legal right to assisted dying could entail a responsibility on others to kill.

"The appeal to our sense of compassion in order to justify a change in our legal practice is wholly understandable; but could it end up undermining just that broad sense of unconditional human worth and value in which compassion itself is grounded?" he said.

"The right to be spared avoidable pain is beyond debate - as is the right to say yes or no to certain treatments in the knowledge of factors such as these.

"But once that has mutated into a right to expect assistance in dying, the responsibility of others is involved, as is the whole question of what society is saying about life and its possible meanings. Legislation ignores these at its cost."

Brian Blackburn admitted killing his terminally ill wife in a suicide pact

Mr Blackburn and his 62-year-old wife Margaret, who was dying of stomach cancer, entered a suicide pact which went wrong when he failed to die after cutting his own wrists.

A post-mortem examination on Mrs Blackburn had shown she had a 3kg (about 6lbs 8oz) tumour in her stomach.

Mr Blackburn received a nine-month jail sentence which was suspended for two years at the Old Bailey.

Voluntary Euthanasia Society spokesman Mark Slattery said that Dr Williams was out of touch with many Christians.

"The majority of worshippers think it is a matter of compassion that when someone faces death, the issue of how they die is a very important one," he said.

"When facing death you do not have a choice between life or death. The choice is sometimes only whether you die well or badly."