Vast majority of doctors oppose assisted suicide

A new poll has found that fewer than one in five doctors would be willing to help patients end their lives.

Of the 600 doctors surveyed by the Medix consultancy, 58 per cent said they were opposed to the legalisation of assisted suicide, representing a significant increase from the last time the question was asked ten years ago.

The poll suggested that if the law was changed, only 19 per cent of doctors would be willing to provide the service, whilst 56 per cent would refuse, with the rest unsure.

Chairman of the British Medical Association’s ethics committee Tony Calland commented: “Many doctors have first-hand experience of caring for dying patients and believe that rather than deliberately ending a patient’s life, we should instead be focusing on building the very best of palliative care for those in distress.

“There have always been strongly held views on assisted dying as this is a complex, emotive issue centred upon vulnerable patients nearing the end of their lives. As reflected in this poll, doctors have repeatedly expressed their opposition to assisted dying.”

Care not Killing’s Alistair Thompson said: “Doctors know that this is not needed, will take money away from palliative care, and it will damage the relationship they have with their patients."

He added: “For all these factors doctors in increasing numbers have hardened their opposition . . . The fact that so few doctors want to have any part in this macabre change in the law shows it is unworkable and would lead to the slippery slope we have seen in other countries.”

Read more (Times) >

In an article for the Telegraph, Dr. Alison Twycross, Head of Children’s Nursing at London South Bank University, highlighted that assisted suicide cannot be legalised "without taking away adequate safeguards for the many”. Read the full article (subscription required) here >