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Doctors review euthanasia stance

Doctors are to debate whether to reinstate their opposition to changes in the law that would allow terminally ill patients to be helped to die.

The British Medical Association voted at its conference last year to drop its stance against euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.

But a motion at this year's Belfast meeting calls for a rethink.

A bill to relax current rules was blocked by the House of Lords in May, but is likely to be reintroduced.

The bill, sponsored by cross-bench peer Lord Joffe, would give doctors the right to prescribe drugs that a terminally ill patient in severe pain could use to end their own life.

Peers backed an amendment to delay the bill by six months by 48 votes.

Lord Joffe admitted that the vote was intended to end the debate, but pledged to reintroduce his bill at a later date.

Opposition

Last year the BMA conference agreed that the issue of assisted dying was primarily a matter for society and parliament.

Doctors backed a motion stating: "The BMA should not oppose legislation which alters the criminal law but should press for robust safeguards both for patients and for doctors who not wish to be involved in such procedures."

However, many doctors were unhappy at the vote, remaining implacably opposed to any form of assisted dying.

They argue that improvements in palliative care mean that even the most stricken of patients can be helped effectively through their final days.

The conference will be asked to back a motion opposing any attempt to legalise physician-assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia in the UK.

Representatives will also consider whether they should hold a ballot of all BMA members on the issue.

A supplementary motion argues that if euthanasia were legalised measures must be put in place to provide a "clear demarcation between those doctors who would be involved in it and those who would not".

Undue influence

Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris, a member of the BMA and the pro-euthanasia group Dignity in Dying, accused the Christian Medical Fellowship of seeking to unduly influence the annual meeting.

He said its members had tried to pack the Belfast meeting and had exerted pressure on individual doctors. In addition, he said, many had written letters to the medical press on the issue without revealing their affiliation.

Dr Harris said: "If the Christian Medical Fellowship turns BMA policy against assisted dying, doctors will never have been further apart from the views of patients and the public, a large majority of whom support the right to choose assisted dying when terminally ill."

Dr Peter Saunders, general secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship, denied claims of undue influence. He said just 10 to 12 members were attending the conference of more than 500 doctors, and dismissed the idea that individual doctors had been targeted.

He said the BMA's neutral stance stood in sharp contrast to opposition from most major medical colleges and international medical associations.

"The BMA is the voice of doctors, and most polls show the vast majority of doctors are opposed to any change in the law on euthanasia, and those doctors who work most closely with the dying are the most opposed.

"If good palliative care is provided, requests for euthanasia are extremely rare. We should be doing all we can to make sure that this care is made more widely available."

A new survey of 200 doctors, carried out by GFK Healthcare for Dignity in Dying, found 30% of GPs would be willing, in principle and if the law permitted, subject to a range of safeguards, to write a prescription to assist a patient to die if their suffering could not be relieved by palliative care.

Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk