SOME of the situations in which people ask for help to die are, indeed, heart-rending, and, if I was in that position, I do not know how I would feel, or what I would want.

So I certainly do not claim the high moral ground in what I write now. But here are some of the reasons that I am not convinced that a change in the law legalise assisted dying would be good for society as a whole.

First, we have to remember that we are not just talking about a one-off decision, but about a change of the law which could have all kinds of consequences. I can imagine a situation where it might be right to put someone out of his or her misery -someone badly wounded and in terrible pain, say, who was going to die anyway, and who was miles away from any medical help.

But we are not just talking about an isolated incident in the jungle, or a desert. The issue is about a change in the law which would change people's attitudes in the country as a whole.

Second, I think we need to question the view increasingly held in our society that if we become totally dependent on others, we somehow lose all point in living.

We all fear losing control of our lives. Certainly I do. We fear the indignity of dying. We do not want to be dependent on others.

But the fact is that life is a mixture of dependence and independence. When we are young, we are totally dependent on others; then, for a period, other people become dependent on us. Towards the end of our lives, we are all likely to become more dependent on others. We do not lose the worth and value of our lives just because of this.
 

BEHIND this fear of loss of control is a false individualism. We are not just a series of isolated individuals, but persons in relationship to other persons.

We need to question the whole individualistic understanding of what it is to be a human being, and recover a more interpersonal one. If we did, we might realise that, when we feel rather helpless, and other people are looking after us, we are still valuable human beings - something that those who love us will certainly want to assure us of.

It might be said: "Yes, they do indeed love me, but I just do not want to go on in this state. I want to die, and they can express their love for me by helping me to do this." Here, however, we have to be careful. What a person asks for does not override all other considerations. We have to ask if it is in his or her best interest, or, more widely, the best interest of society as a whole. If a depressed teenager asks you to help him or her to die, it would be quite wrong to agree. We would express our care for him or her by trying to get some medical help.
 

THE natural expression of love is to want the other person with you, to be with you, even if life is very difficult for both of you. That said, I accept that there are situations when to agree to someone's request to die can be an expression of real care. The problem is, though, as I said at the beginning, we are not talking about an isolated incident, but a change in the law. And one change in the law can quickly lead on to others.

There are two other changes that I think would follow. The Bill on assisted dying which is to be discussed in Parliament next Friday says that a person has to be certified by two doctors as having only six months to live. But why should we stop there? There was a young man in Wales, not long ago, who became totally paralysed as a result of a rugby accident. Life, for him, was a misery, and he had nothing to live for. He asked his family to take him to Switzerland, where he could receive drugs that killed him.

I find myself more moved by his plight than that of someone who, in whatever distress, has only six months to live. For this reason, I think it would be inevitable that, if we passed a law on assisted dying, there would quickly be pressure to extend it to assisted suicide. You might or might not think that was a good idea, but my point is that the one would quickly follow from the other, and we should face this.
 

THE other change that could follow would be a move from voluntary assisted dying, in which a person requests drugs that would kill him or her, to euthanasia, in which people not able to make a decision for themselves would be killed on the decision of doctors - this would apply to badly malformed babies, and older people who are senile.

This has already happened in the Netherlands, and, with the financial pressures building up because so many of us live so long, and so many of us get dementia of one form or another, there would, before long, be a campaign to move from voluntary assisted dying to euthanasia administered by doctors. Again, you might think that this is a good thing, but my point is that we should face the fact that it would be a real possibility.

Malcolm Muggeridge once wrote: "I believe that at all times, and in all circumstances, life is a blessed gift." This is the Christian point of view, and it is based on the fact that, whatever the circumstances we are in, some good can come out of it.

You may say: "If life no longer seems a blessing, I should have the legal freedom to ask someone to help me die." Suicide is no longer a crime, nor should it be a crime to help someone to die, if that is what he or she wants, and all the legal safeguards are met. Why should Christians, and those who agree with them, impose their views on society as a whole - many of whom do not have that faith?

I respect that point of view. All I would say is that I do not think that the law is neutral, and that it always reflects some basic set of values. The value that our law expresses at the moment is that everyone, however old, and in whatever circumstances, is of value.
 

SO I am content to go along with the present guidance of the Director of Public Prosecutions. It says that if someone helps another person to die, say by taking him or her to Switzerland, and is motivated only by compassion, and has persistently tried to persuade the person not to go, then although a crime has been committed, there should be no prosecution.

But keeping the law in place not only deters people from assisting others to die for the wrong reason - perhaps simply because they are a burden - but expresses the fact that our society continues to value every single life.

This makes for some hard cases, I agree. But laws are never totally neutral, and the fact that we have a law in place that forbids people to help others to die expresses our society's conviction that every human life, in every circumstance, is of value, and is to be cared for.

The practical implication of this is that, as a society, we should offer all the help we can to those who need help, and those who care for them.
 

The Rt Revd Lord Harries of Pentregarth is the former Bishop of Oxford, and the author of Questions of Life and Death: Christian faith and medical intervention (SPCK 2010).