Ethical Perspectives on the Value of Life

Why valuing life can lead to different decisions

People can agree that life matters while disagreeing about what protecting it requires. Should a pregnancy always continue? Should a dying person be allowed help to end unbearable suffering? These questions involve competing responsibilities towards the people affected.

For Christians, sanctity of life means that human life is sacred because it comes from God. Genesis 1:27 teaches that humans are made in God’s image. This gives every person dignity and worth, regardless of health, ability or independence.

Quality of life concerns a person’s well-being: their comfort, relationships, enjoyment and suffering. It is difficult to judge because people experience these differently. Needing care does not automatically mean someone has a poor quality of life.

These ideas are not complete opposites. A Christian may protect sacred life by improving someone’s quality of life. A non-religious person may value life deeply without believing that God gave it. Disagreement often arises over whether protecting life should ever give way to relieving suffering or respecting personal choice.

Abortion: whose interests should take priority?

Abortion is the deliberate ending of a pregnancy. The ethical debate concerns the moral status of the embryo or foetus alongside the rights, health and circumstances of the pregnant woman.

A pro-life position emphasises the unborn child’s right to life, often from conception. A pro-choice position emphasises the woman’s right to decide whether to continue the pregnancy. Between these positions are people who oppose most abortions but accept exceptions, such as a serious threat to the woman’s life.

The question of when a developing human gains full moral rights matters here. Those who place this at conception usually reject abortion more strongly than those who connect it with later development, such as the ability to experience pain.

Christian disagreements about abortion

Roman Catholic teaching rejects direct abortion: ending unborn life as the intended aim or as a means to another aim. It teaches that human life must be protected from conception. In Evangelium Vitae (1995), Pope John Paul II described direct abortion as a grave moral wrong. Orthodox Christianity also strongly opposes abortion on the grounds of the sanctity of life.

Many Evangelical Christians oppose abortion because they understand it as taking a life created by God. They apply “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13) to unborn life. Jeremiah 1:5 — “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” — is also used to support the belief that unborn life matters to God. In its original setting, this passage concerns God’s calling of Jeremiah; Christians apply its message about God’s knowledge before birth to this wider ethical question.

These beliefs can lead Christians to campaign against abortion and offer alternatives, including adoption and practical support for women facing difficult pregnancies.

The Church of England combines strong opposition to abortion with recognition that, in strictly limited circumstances, it may be morally preferable to the alternatives. Examples include a serious danger to the woman’s life or a pregnancy resulting from rape. This is sometimes described as choosing the lesser of two evils: neither outcome is good, but one may cause greater harm.

Some Christians use situation ethics, asking what action best expresses love in the particular circumstances. They may argue that compassion for a woman facing severe physical or emotional harm can justify abortion. Other Christians reply that love must protect both the woman and the unborn child, rather than permit the deliberate ending of either life.

Non-religious reasoning about abortion

Many Humanists support informed choice and legal access to abortion. Their reasons include bodily autonomy, the woman’s health and the likely effects on her life and family. Humanists UK emphasises the woman’s interests because she must undergo the pregnancy and may take responsibility for raising the child.

This does not mean abortion is considered trivial. A Humanist may weigh the stage of pregnancy, the developing foetus’s interests and the consequences for everyone involved. Non-religious people do not all reach the same conclusion: someone can oppose abortion because they believe unborn humans have a right to life, without appealing to God.

Consider a pregnancy resulting from rape. A pro-choice argument gives considerable weight to the woman’s freedom and the harm of forcing her to continue the pregnancy. A strict pro-life response argues that the circumstances of conception do not remove the unborn child’s right to life. Evaluating these arguments requires deciding how these competing rights should be weighed, rather than assuming that either side is unconcerned about life.

Euthanasia and allowing natural death

Euthanasia means deliberately ending another person’s life to relieve suffering. In voluntary euthanasia, the person requests it. In non-voluntary euthanasia, the person cannot give consent. Ending someone’s life against their wishes is involuntary euthanasia.

In assisted suicide, someone provides help, but the person themselves carries out the final life-ending act. This distinction matters because campaigns for assisted dying do not necessarily support a doctor directly ending a patient’s life.

Withdrawing treatment that no longer benefits a dying patient is also different from deliberately administering a lethal drug. Although sometimes called ‘passive euthanasia’, a non-treatment decision may allow an illness to take its natural course rather than aim to cause death. The intention and circumstances of the decision matter.

Christian responses to suffering at the end of life

Most Christians oppose deliberately ending life. They connect the sanctity of life with Exodus 20:13 and with Job 1:21: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.” These teachings support the belief that life and death ultimately belong to God, not to human choice.

Roman Catholic and Orthodox teaching reject euthanasia. Catholic teaching nevertheless supports pain relief and does not require every possible medical intervention to continue indefinitely. The principle of double effect distinguishes intending to relieve suffering from intending to kill: an unintended risk of shortening life is not the same as deliberately causing death.

The Church of England generally opposes euthanasia, and many Protestant and Evangelical Christians also reject it. They argue that compassion means caring for people rather than ending their lives. Some individual Christians, however, take a situation ethics approach and argue that helping someone who freely requests death could be the most loving response to unbearable suffering. Other Christians challenge this by arguing that loving intentions cannot justify deliberate killing.

A major Christian alternative is hospice and palliative care. Hospices provide physical, emotional and spiritual support for dying people and their families. Palliative care aims to relieve pain and distress without intending death. Dame Cicely Saunders, inspired by her Christian faith, founded St Christopher’s Hospice in London in 1967. This shows how belief in the value of life can influence practical care, not just opposition to euthanasia.

Humanism and Dignity in Dying

Many Humanists support a person’s right to make informed decisions about their own life. They argue that compassion may require allowing a peaceful death when terminal illness brings suffering that the person finds intolerable. They do not believe that a divine command requires life to be prolonged regardless of its quality.

Dignity in Dying campaigns for a choice of assisted dying for terminally ill, mentally competent adults, subject to safeguards. Its aim is not unrestricted euthanasia or ending life without consent. Humanists support this campaign, but the organisation is not exclusively Humanist.

Supporters argue that safeguards can protect vulnerable people while respecting the choices of those who genuinely want assistance. They also argue that good palliative care and assisted dying need not be mutually exclusive: people could receive care while retaining a choice.

Opponents, including some non-religious people, worry that patients might feel pressure to die because they need care or fear being a burden. They question whether safeguards can detect every case of coercion and whether legal change could weaken trust in doctors. The slippery-slope argument warns that a limited permission might gradually expand to less acceptable practices. This is a concern about possible consequences, not proof that they will inevitably occur.

Peter Singer: why animal suffering matters

The atheist philosopher Peter Singer challenges the idea that human life must always count for more simply because it is human. He criticises speciesism: giving greater weight to interests merely because they belong to members of a preferred species.

For Singer, sentience, the ability to experience pain and pleasure, is morally important. An animal’s suffering should count in a moral decision rather than be dismissed because it is not human. Equal consideration of suffering does not require identical treatment of humans and animals, whose needs and capacities may differ.

This challenges the consistency of relieving animals’ suffering while denying humans any choice about assisted dying. However, opponents can respond that human consent, medical responsibility and the danger of pressure make the situations importantly different.

Catholic teaching rejects Singer’s rejection of the sanctity of human life, maintaining that humans have distinctive dignity because they are made in God’s image. The disagreement is about the basis of moral value: sacred human status, or capacities and interests such as experiencing suffering.

Reaching a reasoned judgement

A strong evaluation weighs both a principle and its consequences. For example, an argument for assisted dying may prioritise a competent adult’s freely expressed choice. The strongest objection is then whether that freedom can be protected from pressure. A justified conclusion must explain why the proposed safeguards are adequate, or why the remaining risk outweighs the benefit of choice.

Alternatively, a conclusion may prioritise the sanctity of life and reject deliberate killing while requiring excellent palliative care. It should still address the supporter’s objection that some people may find their suffering intolerable despite care. The strongest judgements engage with the opposing argument rather than ignoring it.