Fresh polling has revealed widespread concern about plans to legalise assisted suicide ahead of a debate in Parliament this Friday on changing the law.Â
Asked in regards to the statement, “Before parliament considers introducing assisted dying, there needs to be a Royal Commission to look at the longer term of palliative and end of life care,” seven in 10 agreed.
The survey of over 5,000 British adults also noted scepticism about promised protections, with a majority (59 per cent) saying that it was “not possible to create safeguards that will at all times prevent people from being coerced into assisted dying”. Only 1 / 4 (24 per cent) disagreed.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill would require two doctors and a High Court judge to log out on applications for assisted suicide. Applicants would should be terminally unwell and have the mental capability to make the choice.
The survey carried out by Focaldata on behalf of the Care Not Killing coalition found that three quarters of respondents (73 per cent) supported a change to the law. However, after they were presented with 10 arguments against assisted suicide, the proportion who didn’t change their mind to oppose assisted suicide or answer ‘do not know’ fell to only 11 per cent.
It also revealed confusion about what the term ‘assisted dying’ means, with one in six (17 per cent) wrongly pondering it included hospice care and around half (52 per cent) pondering it involved “life-prolonging treatment”.
There was also concern about people being put in danger with over half (58 per cent) saying it was “inevitable that a few of the most vulnerable people in society, similar to the elderly, individuals with disabilities or mental health conditions would feel pressured into an assisted death”.Â
Over half (56 per cent) felt that if assisted suicide were legalised, the present state of the NHS would likely push some people into assisted suicide, while an analogous proportion (57 per cent) agreed that its lower cost in comparison with palliative care would put pressure on the NHS to supply it.
Dr Gordon Macdonald, CEO of Care Not Killing, said the findings showed that the British public “want parliamentarians to repair the NHS, properly funding palliative and social care, not introduce a dangerous and ideological policy that will pressure the vulnerable, the elderly and disabled people into ending their lives prematurely”.
“This major latest poll blows apart the arguments so often advanced by advocates of state-assisted killing that the general public backs changing the law. But this support is predicated on a superficial query that relies on the general public’s comprehensible lack of awareness about what happens within the small number of nations which have legalised assisted suicide or euthanasia,” he said.
“When members of the general public hear that some countries have prolonged laws on assisted dying to incorporate children under 12; that some people have felt pressure to go for assisted suicide or euthanasia because they feel they’re a burden on family members and the way within the UK a transparent majority of palliative care doctors oppose changing the law, support drastically deteriorates.”
He added, “The message couldn’t be clearer, we want care, not killing.”
