Don’t believe the polls that says Brits want assisted suicide to be legalised

For many people, it’s the inability to adequately safeguard people that makes them stop supporting assisted suicide (AS) and start asking questions. After all, where’s the line? If it’s ok for a doctor to help someone die who has one month to live, what about six months? If six months is ok, how about two years? What if somebody isn’t terminally ill at all but they are in pain, is that ok? What if that person is a child? 

In many countries where assisted suicide is legal, even when it began as something available only to people who were thought to be dying imminently, legal challenges or the lobbying of politicians means that the criteria are stretched and stretched until they are virtually meaningless. 

While some campaign groups will argue that most Brits support the legalisation of assisted suicide, when those people start looking into how safeguarding could truly work in the implementation of these proposed laws, they start to question themselves and their previous position. 

For others, it’s when they start to ask questions about the impact legalised assisted suicide would have on the relationships people have with their doctors, or whether it would “normalise” suicide. 

A survey by Whitestone Insight, commissioned by Living and Dying Well (LDW), asked 2001 British adults a range of questions about their attitudes to assisted suicide, and its findings cast doubt on the simplistic “most people support it” line we often hear. 

Amongst other things, LDW found: 

Too many complicating factors

• 56 per cent of those who express an opinion (71 percent of all those surveyed) support legalising assisted dying/assisted suicide (AD/AS) in principle but feel there are too many complicating factors to make it a practical and safe option to implement in Britain

Doctors should be able to opt out

• A majority feel that if assisted dying is legalised in the UK, patients should have the legal right to choose to be treated by doctors and other health professionals who have opted out of participating in it
• On conscientious objection, more than three quarters (77 per cent) felt all doctors, healthcare workers, and hospices should have the right to opt out of the service. This rose to nine in 10 (89 per cent) of those who expressed an opinion
• 60 per cent of those surveyed worried that legalizing AD/AS would fundamentally change the relationship between doctor and patient, including more than half (51 per cent) of those who support AD/AS

People do not prioritise legalising assisted suicide

• Legalising assisted dying/assisted suicide is not a political priority for most people. Legalising assisted dying/assisted suicide ranked 23 out of 24 of issues that need attention, with “regulating AI” and “international trade deals” ranking higher. Only four per cent thought it should be a priority for politicians

Influenced by the reality in other countries

• Seven in 10 (70 per cent) said that assistance in dying in countries like Canada and the Netherlands, where young people with no terminal illness are helped to die, has gone too far. This rose to more than eight in 10 (84 per cent) when those who answered ‘don’t know’ were discounted
• A third (33 per cent) of those who support AD/AS in practice thought that the revelation that rates in Oregon – the model for the current bill – went up by 260 per cent was concerning
• 40 per cent of those who had supported legalisation reconsidered when confronted with the fact that young people suffering from mental illness were euthanised in Belgium and the Netherlands

Young people reject assisted suicide

• Young people reject assisted dying/assisted suicide more than do any other age group. Fewer than half (44 per cent) of 18–24-year-olds supported legalising assisted dying/assisted suicide

Normalising suicide

• A clear majority – 56 per cent – voiced fears that legalising assisted suicide would lead to a culture where suicide becomes more normalised than it is today. This rose to 67 per cent when those who answered “don’t know” were omitted

Impact of assisted suicide on the NHS and funding

• 43 per cent fear that introducing assisted suicide when the NHS and Social Care budget is under such pressure would inevitably place an incentive on health professionals to encourage some people to end their lives early
• Four in ten people (41 per cent) are concerned that introducing assisted suicide when the NHS is under such strain would “inevitably” risk funding for palliative care services
• Half (50 per cent) of those who supported it in principle think that the fact that Canada saves money with every patient euthanised was a strong argument against legalisation.

These findings reinforce the need to resist the overriding narrative that most people want AS to be legalised, and highlight that most polls on the topic are overly simplistic and rely on gut feelings about wanting to avoid future discomfort, rather than question the details and ask people to examine the implications of assisted suicide becoming legal. 

Image: Disability:IN