Over fifty doctors with first-hand experience of caring for patients have signed a letter opposing assisted dying in the UK

Calling Times readers’ attention to a recent British Medical Association (BMA) survey, the letter related how the “majority of doctors licensed to practice would not agree to prescribe lethal drugs (assisted suicide) and a larger majority would not administer them (euthanasia). Any marginal interest in the idea is therefore not matched by enthusiasm for the practice.”

This survey also revealed that 84% of doctors who deal with dying patients within the field of palliative medicine would not wish to perform euthanasia on a patient, even if they were legally allowed to do so.

In the Times letter, the signatories also underlined the point that “every legislature that allows ‘safeguarded’ assisted dying has seen its safeguards breached, starkly illustrating the gap between principle and practice.”

As SPUC recently reported, one of the safeguards in the Netherlands, which allows assisted dying, has been removed by a new rule granting doctors permission to sedate dementia patients before administering a lethal injection (if the patient has expressed a wish to die at some point before).

This new rule was implemented after a Dutch doctor had a murder conviction overturned after she was found guilty of drugging a patient before “euthanizing” them.

SPUC comment

A SPUC spokesperson said: “It is vital that we listen to doctors who actually work with dying patients everyday and in the field of palliative care and who are opposed to assisted dying. Rather than seeking to kill patients, the UK should be supporting and reinforcing palliative care doctors instead of insisting that they take the lives of those they are called upon to treat.”

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