The Assisted Dying Bill
they should be provided with all other options available and that doctors do not ‘’owe them death’’ (Venkatapuram, 2025). Be that as it may, Sridhar, and the BMA policy-makers, cannot be expected to speak on behalf of every doctor in the UK. Unfortunately, data measuring medical opinion on the Assisted Dying Bill is not currently available. However, in February 2020 the BMA published the results of a survey in which they asked members if they were in favour of legalizing voluntary euthanasia. The survey itself amassed nearly 30,000 responses (BMA, 2020), although it is worth bearing in mind that it was conducted 5 years ago – well before the current Assisted Dying Bill was introduced into Parliament –, and the findings are likely to be more socially conservative than if the same survey was conducted today. Furthermore, in the survey there was no explicit question measuring the participants’ opinions on assisted dying for those with non-terminal mental diseases. Nonetheless, the study did find that only 36% of respondents would agree to ‘participate in any way’ in self-administered assisted dying (BMA, p. 25), and a mere one in four were willing hypothetically to administer the lethal medication to the patient themselves (BMA, p. 53). The survey did include those with severe physical but still non-terminal diseases as eligible for assisted dying (BMA, p. 5), which is noteworthy at least, but it is clear from this survey that the majority of British doctors do not want to be an active part of the assisted dying movement.
So, what can we conclude from all these surveys?
First, the argument for assisted dying for those with severe mental disorders is all but void. The majority of the public are against it, the BMA specified that under no circumstances should they be eligible for voluntary euthanasia, and while we will soon discuss the few ethical arguments defending it, realistically the chances of mental health illnesses being included as part of the Bill without there being nationwide uproar are slim to none. On the other hand, while there is not a great deal of outcry for non-terminal physical illnesses to be included, there is not much variation in opinion between terminal and non- terminal physical diseases either. Public polling levels for the two are similar, and the BMA did not put a lifetime-span cut-off point in their criteria on who should be eligible for assisted dying. Therefore, while the majority believe that the Assisted Dying Bill should not be extended to those with mental health disorders, in terms of public opinion there is an argument to be made to include those with non-terminal but physical degenerative diseases. Having said that, we cannot just use public and medical opinion as a formula to see who should be eligible for assisted dying. The government makes decisions that are unpopular with the public all the time. Under the Gordon Brown administration a ban on smoking in public places was implemented across Britain, despite being opposed by many smokers and pub owners at the time (BBC, 2007). Nowadays, I do not believe that even the heaviest of chain smokers would see Brown’s legislation as detrimental. So, it is clear that controversial decisions can be defended by politicians on the grounds that they are being done in the people’s best interest. Could not this same logic apply to the Assisted Dying Bill, and to changing its eligibility threshold, even if the public were against it?
What is arguably more important is that we define whether extending the Bill would be better for the UK in the long-term. Fortunately, there are 10 other countries in the world that have legalized assisted dying in some way (Burman, 2024) We can look at these countries to see whether their assisted dying models
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