A MASSIVE Church of England Synod vote against a bill that would legalise voluntary euthanasia was not necessarily a "rational response", it was claimed last night. Just one member of the church's ruling body supported the Bill and 293 voted against it on Saturday, after the Archbishop of Canterbury said he feared moves towards legalising voluntary euthanasia were being motivated by the need for cost-cutting in healthcare. Yesterday Lord Joffe, who introduced the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill in the House of Lords last year, said: "The result is disappointing and does not demonstrate, necessarily, a rational response to the issue, but one rather based on religious dogma. "The church was opposed to woman bishops, homosexuality and a vast number of other things but society has moved on and is, in some respects, more compassionate and caring than the church." Lord Joffe's Bill was introduced in part following the case of Liverpool motor neurone sufferer Reg Crew, from Hunts Cross, who was forced to leave the UK and attend a Swiss clinic run by the Dignitas group after deciding to end his life in January 2003. His widow, Win, is a keen supporter of Lord Joffe's Bill. In Saturday's debate, Dr Rowan Williams reaffirmed his opposition to euthanasia and assisted suicide and added that the provision of palliative care across Britain was "patchy" but establishing a more equal service would be very costly. The archbishop said: "This is not simply a debate about medical ethics, it's also about economic ethics." He went on: "In a climate where the pressure is all towards a functionalised, reduced style of healthcare provision, this (assisted dying) must be a very, very tempting option to save money and resources. "We have to be honest about this but we have to recognise that this is also an economic question and therefore a question about power. "And, if the Church is to be true to itself, in insisting that our economic life, our economic investment at every level is as morally and theologically coherent as any other area of our lives, then we need to make this point public." Lord Joffe said that it would be "entirely incorrect" to say that the objective of the bill was cost-cutting: "What we are concerned solely about is the prevention of unnecessary suffering ... and patient choice," he said.. "Nothing could be further from the truth that the objective of the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill is in order to save money." | 
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