Pulling Britain Back from the Abyss

Britain’s House of Lords may no longer feature the famous peers of the past—Pitt the Elder, Salisbury, the Duke of Wellington—and its government may no longer sit at the center of an empire. Americans therefore do not pay attention to its proceedings. But a recent debate that has unfolded in that house is worth reviewing, as it reveals that the biblical heritage of the West has not yet entirely disappeared across the Atlantic.

The debate concerned what is known as the “Terminally Ill Adults Bill,” which was introduced in the House of Commons in 2024. The law would allow a patient who has been given six months to live to end his life with the assistance of a doctor or other medical figure. While Prime Minister Keir Starmer supported the law, he did not make it a part of his party’s legislative agenda. So members of Parliament were free to vote their conscience. Having passed the Commons by a significant margin, it has met with real opposition in the Lords from many of its members, including Theresa May, the former prime minister, and some of the prominent Jewish members of the House.

One longtime Jewish member of the House of Lords is no longer there; Rabbi Jonathan Sacks passed away in 2023. At that point, he was not only the most prominent Judaic presence in the English-speaking world; one might argue that he was the most influential defender of the biblical moral tradition in Europe. And while his voice is no longer heard in the golden and gilded hall in the Palace of Westminster, there is no question what he would have said had he still lived. In 2006, a similar bill was introduced in Britain, and Sacks, then chief rabbi, eloquently inveighed against it in the Times of London. Writing movingly of his father’s last moments, Rabbi Sacks reflected how Judaism saw life itself as a gift. Yet most striking about his presentation was the fact that his argument rested not only on Jewish tradition, but on one of the most prominent non-rabbinic thinkers of our age.