It is a measure of the strength of religious objection to the assisted dying Bill that Dr Rowan Williams, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Sir Jonathan Sacks have united against it. They have issued joint statements before, but rarely on legislation up for debate in Parliament.

In a letter published in today’s Times, they say: “We are opposed to this Bill and to any measure that seeks to legalise assisted suicide or euthanasia. We believe that all human life is sacred and God-given with a value that is inherent, not conditional.”

Calling on peers to withhold support when the Bill is debated in the Lords today, the three religious leaders gave a warning that a right to die could become, for the terminally ill, a “duty to die”.

They say: “Were such a law enacted, the elderly, lonely, sick or distressed would find themselves under pressure, real or imagined, to ask for an early death. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that economic pressures might not come to play a significant part in determining whether to treat or recommend assisted death.”

A successful intervention by bishops in the Lords could have an impact on the current debate over reform of the Lords. Britain is the only Western democracy where clerics sit in the legislature by right.

Dr Williams, along with his predecessor, Lord Carey of Clifton, is expected to speak strongly against the Bill. About 12 of the 26 bishops who sit in the Lords are expected to attend.

The House of Lords, which traditionally sits at 11am on a Friday, is starting at 10am to allow full participation. Peers do not often vote on a second reading but Lord Carlile of Berriew, the Liberal Democrat QC and former MP, has tabled an amendment that will force a vote. If passed, it will wreck the Bill by delaying it for six months.

This week, doctors united in protest against the Bill, which is proposed by Lord Joffe, the human rights lawyer, and would enable adults of sound mind who are suffering “unbearably” as a result of terminal illness to die at their own request. Organisations such as the National Council for Palliative Care also oppose the Bill.

Dignity in Dying, formerly known as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, yesterday released results of a YouGov survey, claiming the support of 76 per cent of the public for the Bill. More than a third of the 1,770 people surveyed said they had personal experience of hospices or palliative care.

Deborah Annetts, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said: “The public is being massively turned off by this week’s well-funded demonstration of religious opposition against a Bill they clearly support.”

The Bill has restored the traditional battle lines between the country’s religious and humanist leaders who, in a temporary truce, mounted a successful fight against the recent incitement to religious hatred legislation.

Humanists are strongly backing the Bill. Keith Porteous Wood, of the National Secular Society, said that if the bishops in the Lords successfully prevented further debate of the Bill, it would be “a disgraceful abuse of the democratic process.”

This week, the British Humanist Association accused Christian groups of misinformation, scaremongering and hypocrisy in their opposition to the Bill.

• In a news in brief item yesterday we reported Lord Joffe accusing three peers of failing to “honour an agreement made last year to allow further scrutiny” of his assisted dying Bill by calling for a vote on the second reading, which is likely to wreck the Bill.

  We have been asked to make it clear that Lord Joffe did not accuse “three peers” of “breaking their word” and in so far as the words reflected on Lord Carlile, the mover of the amendment today, we unreservedly apologise to him, Lord Joffe and the other unnamed peers for misreporting Lord Joffe’s letter.

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