Ono George, no George, no… I never thought I would see the day when I disagreed with anything said by the admirable former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey.

He is a wonderful man and, in the contemporary church, a prince among pigmies.

But he has just said that “terminally-ill” patients – O for God’s sake George, say “dying”

– should have the right to assisted suicide.

I know where George is, as they say, coming from. He is a Christian gentleman and a compassionate man. I don’t actually disagree with him in the essentials. Of course, people in the terrible last stages of appalling illnesses should be given all the assistance possible to make the best outcome.

It’s only the word “right” that I find fault with. I have numbered GPs – family doctors as we used to call them – among my best friends all my life.

None of these kind, capable, compassionate men and women would ever wish to prolong the torture of someone in the final throes of a dreadful disease. What used to happen, in better days, was that a dying person would be unofficially helped to shuffle off this mortal coil.

I would hope that that option might still be available to me when my time comes. I know it’s all a bit shifty and, as it were, under the counter. But it was an arrangement that worked . It had love and mercy in it.

But, dear George, once you introduce the word “right” as in “right to die” – you open the can of worms. For if one person has a right, this necessarily entails that someone else has a responsibility. To put it bluntly, if I have the right to die, then someone else has the responsibility to kill me.

Once you start to make these issues matters of statute, you are bound to incur problems worse than the difficulties which existed in the first place.

Many disasters arise out of good intentions.

I was a young progressive in the 1960s and I was, for instance, persuaded by the argument in favour of the legalisation of abortion. We were told that the proper, decent operations for terminations would stop the back street trade and all would be clean, merciful and professional. Moreover, that the legalisation of abortion would actually result in fewer abortions. But now what do we see? There are 200,000 abortions every year – and rising. Abortion used as a means of contraception; a cosmetic for young women who don’t want a pregnancy to interfere with their lifestyle.

I’m not trying to moralise. I actually don’t have a case to confess. I’m simply and boringly pointing out the obvious: that acts and decisions have consequences.

And so what will the consequences of an “assisted dying” bill be?

We know that people can be notoriouslyself- interested. If it seems agreeable to some to put down granny, then granny might well find herself put down.

I’m not trying to be dogmatic. I find these issues as difficult as you do. And I am not unsympathetic. It’s just that I’ve had a long life and I can see (some of) the wood from (a few of) the trees. I actually like people.

My whole vocation over 40 years as a priest has been pastoral care, But what looks like a humane policy just might not be. So be careful of unintended consequences.

And watch out for what you wish for – you just might get it.