As soon as it was announced that there would be a vote on assisted dying, lobby groups for and against the change swung into action. Both present themselves as the champions of compassion, either for the terminally ill, or for the disabled and other vulnerable people who could feel pressured into accepting it. 

There have been previous attempts to legalise assisted dying, but the last vote in the Commons, in 2015, was easily defeated by a House that contained many more Conservatives and far fewer Labour and LibDem MPs than it does now.

One group of MPs that forces opposed to the change would have counted on has shrunk dramatically as a result of July’s general election — Christian Tory MPs. Membership of the Conservative Christian Fellowship has gone from 30 to 40 to barely 10. David Burrowes, a co-founder of the Conservative Christian Fellowship and a former Tory MP, tells me the Christian right has lost “champions” of conscience issues, life issues, family, liberty. Caroline Ansell sought to reduce the statutory time limit for abortion from 24 to 22 weeks; Thérèse Coffey voted against gay marriage; Miriam Cates publicly opposed transgender ideology. As for defending individual freedoms, Fiona Bruce, as Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Freedom of Religion or Belief, took her brief into the international arena, chairing and expanding the US-founded International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance. 

The number of Christians now in Parliament hasn’t changed much since before the last election, but their politics have. The ranks of the group Christians on the Left (CotL) have risen by around 20 to just over 50 paying members, their director Hannah Rich told me, and their numbers include foreign secretary David Lammy, health secretary Wes Streeting, business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, schools standards minister Catherine McKinnell, and junior ministers including Stephen Timms. Especially for the newcomers, theirs is a “practical Christianity”, she says, informed by previous work in the charitable sector or by their local church’s social action projects, such as a foodbank, a toddler group or a project for asylum-seekers. Tackling poverty is a key motivator for them. 

This apparent values divide — life issues on the right, social justice on the left — is thankfully not as wide as it is in the US, where a sad casualty of their bitter culture wars is the centre ground. I was assured that many left-leaning Christian MPs are concerned about life issues, but daunted by the prospect of voicing those views to colleagues and constituents, a proportion of whom will be unhappy with how their MP votes. So on assisted dying, CotL is explaining rather than pushing their argument against, to create a space where MPs can air their views without fearing a backlash. (Free votes are not always as free as they sound: Coffey co-signed a letter saying “varying degrees of coercion” were used around the same-sex marriage bill.) 

Yet they may be able to count on several senior Labour figures for air cover: Lammy, Reynolds and two Catholics: education secretary Bridget Phillipson and aviation minister Mike Kane all voted against assisted dying in 2015. And some waverers may be scared off the pro campaign as already it appears to be getting ahead of itself: Humanists UK say that already 54 MPs want the legislation to cover not only the “terminally ill” but also the “incurably suffering”. Others are understood to be nervous at having to vote on such a complex issue only two weeks after the publication of the details of the bill. 

A second big difference between the intake of young, conscientious MPs and those they replaced, after party affiliation, is experience. Being early in their careers (more than half are only three months into the job) they may be more approval-conscious than old hands, and being younger generally, they have been raised in a more secular Britain than the likes of Bruce and Coffey. If you haven’t grown up with either religious teaching or knowing someone who is severely disabled or ill, where will you encounter arguments against assisted dying? 

As to the parliamentary debate, it needs coherent thinking about the end of life, informed but not driven by emotive stories of high-profile individuals. Hearts rightly go out to the terminally ill Esther Rantzen, but her Oxford education and celebrity status set her apart. If MPs are to have any individual in mind when they debate, it should be someone beset by piecemeal care, inadequate family support and financial woes — someone who is all too often left invisible. Tat resonates more with the social care crisis, our atomised communities and the legacy of austerity. 

When the debate gets under way can either side be mollified by legal safeguards or serious investment in the palliative care and social care system? Already in the run-up unusual alliances are emerging, such as disability and religious groups; conservatives and people who back abortion but are uneasy about assisted dying. Anything that helps one segment of society understand the lot of another is good for empathy and cohesion. 

Given that quoting the Bible no longer resonates with the British public in the way it would have two generations ago, MPs against assisted dying are unlikely to come out with exhortations such as “Defend the oppressed … plead the case of the widow”. But they barely need to. They translate easily into protecting the rights of the disabled or those without family networks or those dependent on the threadbare benefits system or uneven palliative care system. 

But equally, and somewhat awkwardly for those opposing assisted dying, arguments in favour will draw on concepts that are also biblically rooted: compassion and dignity. Which is how one former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, has offered a religious argument in favour of assisted dying. Carey’s line offers Christian MPs a route by which they can vote in favour and feel they still have the blessing of their Church. 

The electorate deserves a debate carried out with as much space for nuance and national soul-searching as this weighty topic deserves

Before his election Keir Starmer grandly said, “There will be no decade of national renewal without the active participation of the church.” But this debate, so early on, threatens to disenfranchise those churches he was counting on. Churches teach the doctrine of Original Sin, which warns that no manner of legal safeguards will ever mean Granny is totally safe. Even if she had a fully funded social care package and a well run hospice nearby (which these days is in the realm of the miraculous), the self-interest of anyone who stood to benefit from her passing would always put her at risk. 

However split it is, the Christian contribution is unlikely to decide the vote. However it could at least set the tone for it. Christians, particularly the Church of England, have after all, a lot of experience when it comes to disagreeing, and supposedly disagreeing well. The electorate deserves a debate carried out with as much space for nuance and national soul-searching as this weighty topic deserves.