Antonia Tully, blogpost

What doctors think about assisted suicide is critical. They are the ones who are likely to be given the power to sanction the killings if the law is changed. On the whole the public trusts doctors and their views are very influential. So a headline in the Daily Mail earlier this month – “Half of doctors back law change on euthanasia: 50% support assisted dying with prescription of life-ending drugs, new survey reveals” – could seem worrying for those of us alarmed by the prospect of legalised suicide.

The “new survey” on assisted suicide is actually a poll carried out by the British Medical Association (BMA) back in February 2020. The BMA is the trade union for doctors in the UK and, currently, 159,000 doctors and 19,000 medical students are members. Only 19.35% responded to the questions in the survey. Now the BMA has published a fuller details of the results of the poll so we can get a clearer picture of what doctors think about assisted suicide.

It is true that 50% of doctors who responded stated that they personally support a change in the law on “prescribing drugs for eligible patients to self-administer to end their own life”. A chilling thought.

However, the numbers start to shift a little bit when doctors are asked if they would be “willing to participate in the process in any way”.  At this point only 45% are willing to take part in killing someone.

Watch the numbers fall again when doctors say whether they “personally support or oppose a change in the law on doctors administering drugs with the intention of ending an eligible patient’s life” (emphasis added).  Now 46% oppose a change in the law, with 37% in favour and 17% undecided.

So it appears that when push comes to shove, our doctors don’t really want to be the ones who give the lethal drugs to their patients. Or at least more of them don’t than do. Other information offered by the BMA includes the fact that doctors in Northern Ireland were “generally more opposed” to a change in the law to allow assisted suicide. That will come as no surprise to us in the pro-life movement. Until recently, Northern Ireland was one of the safest places in Europe for unborn babies, so no wonder doctors there have a heightened sense of protecting the most vulnerable.

Returning to my headline question: Who are the doctors willing to kill?  the BMA’s recent report tells us that those doctors “without a licence to practice”, presumably retired doctors, and medical students were most in favour of a change in the law to allow doctors to kill their patients.  So there you have it. In 2020 the doctors who want patients to be killed by assisted suicide are the very ones who don’t now, or won’t ever, actually have to do it. 

By contrast, GPs were reported to be “generally most opposed”. And it’s no surprise at all to hear that doctors working in clinical oncology, geriatric medicine and palliative care are also opposed to assisted suicide.  These are the doctors who should be informing this debate; the doctors looking after patients who would be the prime victims of intentional killing.

Of course I am not the only person to hold the view that doctors with no licence to practice should not be making decisions on this. But we have our opponents and it wasn’t long before we heard a shrill voice decrying this observation.  Emeritus Professor Norma Rinsler, Former vice-principal, King’s College London rushed into print on the letters’ page of The Times to assert that “retired doctors are likely as a group to have had more experience than those who are at present in practice”. Well, Professor, that may or may not be true. But armchair voters should not be deciding whether the most vulnerable people in this country can be killed by their doctors. 

Professor Rinsler went on to say in her letter: “My late husband, a retired doctor, endured treatment that he knew to be pointless, and suffered great pain and appalling indignities in his final weeks last year”.  That’s very sad. But it doesn’t have to be that way and very fortunately, a few days later, a voice of compassion joined the letters’ page debate. Dr Carol L Davis Lead Consultant Palliative Medicine, University Hospital Southampton informed Professor Rinsler “most patients” die “peacefully of their illness”.  And Dr Davis clearly had no truck with Professor Rinsler’s mealy-mouthed statement that a “reluctance to prescribe [lethal drugs] is understandable”. “We are not reluctant” declared Dr Davis, “we are just not prepared to do it.” Hear, hear!

The BMA has said that it carried out the poll to inform a future debate on BMA policy. That debate is scheduled for June 2021. Between now and then, pro-lifers could write to their local hospice, urging the doctors who work there to use their vote next June to ensure that the BMA retains its current position of opposition to assisted suicide. Dr Carol Davis and those who share her position deserve our support.