VSED is part of the assisted suicide agenda.

Gordon Friesen

By Gordon Friesen
President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

One of our great friends and allies, Wesley J. Smith, has recently written about the British Medical Association's newly minted policy and other bioethics articles which require doctors to collaborate with patients who are attempting to kill themselves through hunger and thirst.

This practice is commonly euphemized as ‘voluntarily stopping eating and drinking’, which ungainly expression is then replaced with the more slick-sounding acronym ‘VSED’. However we must unfortunately note (as usual) that the most important facts of this matter are absent from that deceptive formulation: first, the primary fact of suicide does not appear at all; and second, a misleading confusion is suggested between this specific method, of suicide, and traditionally familiar practices of fasting.

To be clear on this score, our subject has nothing to do with fasting (even to the point of death). For our bodies are well adapted to suffer the naturally frequent periods of famine to which we have been exposed throughout our evolution.

That is what makes fasting so comparatively easy (as long as fluid intake is properly maintained). For after a brief period of normal hunger (familiar to all occasional fasters), our bodies literally hunker down to wait out the interruption of nourishment.

Indeed, dying of hunger takes approximately one day for every pound of fat on our bodies, followed by another day for every three pounds of muscle. Hence, suicide by fasting is relatively painless, but takes a very long time, which generally provides plenty of opportunity for second thoughts.

Deprivation of fluids, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter. In this case, death follows in a few days only. And for that practical reason, our bodies are not adapted to quietly suffer thirst. Indeed, thirst is a biological emergency, and our bodies ring the alarm on this emergency through the communication of insufferable discomfort.

It is this unbearable discomfort, in turn, which death-friendly doctors happily propose to alleviate, through the provision of various medications (which also heavily impair critical thought). In other words: because suicide by dehydration is virtually impossible to endure, it is only the assistance of doctors which make such deaths possible, by numbing both the body and the brain.

For that reason, so-called ‘VSED’ is clearly an instance of assisted suicide, not mere comfort care and because doctors are professionally responsible for their acts in a way that ordinary people are not, it is also a form of medical homicide.

In truth, while so-called ‘VSED’ might appear very similar to terminal sedation, it is also much more problematic. For palliative sedation is only to be used in the most difficult of medical cases. But suicide by dehydration may be chosen, by any person, for any reason. It thus represents a truly radical departure from accepted norms, by providing suicidal persons with a voluntary entry point to the practical equivalent of palliative sedation, but without the need of medical justification. 

In reporting on the decision of the British Medical Association (to force the collaboration of doctors with this practice) the headline message has quite properly been centered upon the serious attack, thus produced, upon individual and institutional rights of conscience. For dissenting doctors, and institutions, are thus robbed of that crucial medical status, of independent moral agent, upon which all patients rely for proper care.

It is also worthwhile, however, to recall the importance of medically assisted suicide by dehydration, even in those jurisdictions where no such compulsion has yet been contemplated.

In the simplest of terms: so-called ‘VSED’ is definitely a form of medically assisted suicide, and yet its practice is legal in all States. Which means that even if you live in a State where assisted suicide is illegal, medically assisted suicide (VSED) is still being practised, in your State.

Furthermore, all of the terrible harms of medical homicide are enabled through this practice. For if there is nothing illegal about informing patients of the dehydration suicide option (and there is not) then there is similarly no check on any death-practitioner's ability to energetically market their product, and thus to professionally deliver as many people from the pains of human existence, as they possibly can.

In fact, unlike any other form of medical homicide (in the US or even in Canada) medically assisted suicide by dehydration is already available for dementia patients, through professionally solicited advance requests (similarly legal in all States).

Such, then, is the portrait of that formidable Trojan Horse, medically assisted suicide by dehydration (aka ‘VSED’).

Becoming aware of this practice, as yet another finger on the hand of medical homicide (and by no means the least of these) is a powerful first step in pushing back.

And while we may understand the zealous actions of fully devoted death-cult physicians, it is less easy to understand why our leaders, as in this latest British example, are so keenly committed to the promotion, and facilitation, of that extreme death agenda.

British Medical Association Requires Doctors to Help Patients Commit Suicide by Dehyrdration.

This article was published by National Review online on August 19, 2026.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

The subtitle of the revised and updated version of my book criticizing utilitarian bioethics, Culture of Death, is, “The Age of ‘Do Harm’ Medicine.” Helping patients kill themselves by self-starvation and dehydration — known in euthanasia parlance as VSED (for voluntary stopping eating and drinking) — certainly fits that designation.

Two major medical associations now have endorsed doctors assisting in such suicides by palliating the painful symptoms to help patients go all the way to death. The first was the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) in 2023. This is especially notable because the organization shamefully went “neutral” on the legalization of assisted suicide, despite that action being the antithesis of the hospice philosophy enunciated by the great medical humanitarian Dame Cecily Saunders. The AAHPM’s journal also published a piece recently endorsing intentionally undernourishing dementia patients under certain conditions (MCF, or “minimal comfort feeding”) — VSED in slow motion, if you will.

Now, another “do harm” shoe has dropped. The British Medical Association has issued an ethical guidance that requires practitioners to participate in VSED when asked to do so by a patient. While the AAHPM guidance assumes that the act will only be done by terminally ill or seriously ill or disabled patients, the BMA guidance notably acknowledges that even those not in ill health can kill themselves in this slow manner — and that doctors must further the suicide palliatively. From the guidance (my emphasis):

We start from a position of understanding that: – patients with capacity are entitled to make decisions about treatment refusals and about their nutrition and hydration, including to voluntarily stop eating and drinking in order to hasten their death;– there is no requirement in the law that a patient needs to be ill or at the end of life to decide to voluntarily stop eating and drinking in order to hasten their death.

All doctors so requested are expected by the BMA to participate in VSED by assessing patients and easing symptoms; indeed, the guidance asserts that it is an ethical duty for doctors to be complicit in such suicides:

When an adult patient has made the decision to elect to VSED, the doctor’s initial responsibility is to assess the patient to check that: (1) the patient has the capacity to make the decision; (2) the patient’s decision is not a symptom of a mental disorder; and (3) the patient’s decision is being made free from coercion.

If the three criteria above are fulfilled, doctors have a professional duty to provide palliative care and symptom relief to their patient. The doctor’s role is not to consider whether the patient’s decision is rational, reasonable, or sensible. It is not for doctors to decide whether the patient should be permitted to end their life in this way. [Emphasis added.]

It’s one thing to say doctors can’t stop a suicidal patient from self-starvation — although one would think that suicide prevention would be on the table of which there is no mention in the guidance. But it is quite another to require doctors’ participation in such suicides.

A stunted conscientious objection clause is endorsed, but it is an essentially meaningless protection, with complicity in the preparation process still required.

Doctors cannot exercise a conscientious objection to seeing or having an initial consultation with their patient. However, some doctors may wish to exercise a conscientious objection to carrying out the detailed assessments (see section 3) and/or providing symptom relief, such as analgesics or palliative sedation (see section 4). Doctors exercising a conscientious objection must follow professional guidance and ensure that there is someone else available to take over the detailed assessments and the patient’s care without delay or detriment to the patient. This means that, with the patient’s consent, doctors must pass on their assessment and care to another doctor who is willing to provide that support. [Emphasis added.]

In other words, forced procurement of another doctor who is willing to help the patient commit suicide. And if the patient says no or another doctor can’t be found? It would seem that the original physician would have no choice but to provide whatever support is required to get the patient dead.

Suicide nihilism is exerting an ever-stronger gravitational pull in the West, with doctors increasingly expected to wield their expertise as so many death order-takers. The AAHPM’s and BMA’s blessing of physician participation in VSED deepens that darkness and strengthens the culture of death.

How Euthanasia Is Rewriting the Ethics of Medicine

The following letter by Dr. Ramona Coelho was published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in February 2026.

Dr Ramona Coelho

Dr. Coelho is a Family Physician; a Senior Fellow of Domestic and Health Policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and a Member of Medical Assistance in Dying Ontario (MAiD) Death Review Committee (MDRC).

 

Dear Editor,

Recent BMJ commentary has suggested that Canada’s assisted dying regime involves robust independent assessment and that coercion is not a meaningful concern[1], despite alarms raised by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities[2] and government oversight reports[3]. A key question is whether introducing assisted dying into medicine is adversely altering clinical practice. Assisted dying is often framed as patient autonomy. Yet this framing minimizes how Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) reshapes clinical reasoning, professional responsibility, and interpretations of suffering. Under Canada’s Criminal Code, MAiD is exempt from homicide and assisted suicide offences[4]. Supporters argue this reflects compassionate care. However, legal authorization does not eliminate ethical complexity. Instead, it transfers these judgments into clinical decision-making, where legal categories do not easily align with clinical paradigms.

Societal discourse frequently describes MAiD as a last resort. Yet it has become a leading cause of death in Canada, reflecting normalization within clinical pathways rather than exceptional use[5]. MAiD is fundamentally different from other interventions. It is irreversible, cannot be titrated for benefit, and targets the person, not the disease-process[6].

Advocates often emphasize intolerable physical suffering. However, Canadian reports show that MAiD frequently arises from social and systemic harms rather than strictly medical pathology. Emotional distress, loneliness, fear of being a burden, and loss of independence are commonly reported drivers of MAiD requests[5]. These reflect profound social failures.

MAiD eligibility requires clinicians to assess whether illness is grievous and irremediable, whether death is reasonably foreseeable, and whether the patient has capacity and is acting voluntarily[4]. These judgments may shift clinical focus from treatment and advocacy toward procedural confirmation of eligibility for death.

Oversight reports have identified cases in which patients were deemed eligible not because treatments failed, but because treatment was refused or unavailable[3]. When lack of access to care is interpreted as irremediability, MAiD risks functioning as a response to system failure rather than disease progression.

Interpretations of “reasonably foreseeable natural death” vary among assessors. Some clinicians consider a five-year prognosis sufficient[7]. Others accept patient decisions to stop eating, drinking, or accepting treatment as evidence of foreseeable death[8]. In such contexts, deterioration can become self-fulfilling evidence of eligibility.

Capacity assessment also raises concerns. Reports describe assessments occurring under clinically questionable conditions, including fluctuating cognition, heavy sedation, or minimal psychiatric evaluation[3]. These cases illustrate how clinical norms shift when assisted dying becomes routine rather than exceptional.

Policy structure may also influence clinical behaviour. Canadian guidance encourages clinicians to discuss MAiD proactively and for objecting clinicians to provide referrals[9]. These systems can streamline access, and patients may be funnelled toward more permissive MAiD providers.

When assisted dying becomes a predictable endpoint for complex suffering, it narrows clinician tolerance for uncertainty and complexity. It weakens the obligation to remain with patients through suffering.

This is concerning in a health system with gaps in palliative care, community supports, and disability services. When social and medical supports are unavailable, assisted death may become a structurally shaped choice rather than a voluntary one.

Many MAiD providers act in good faith. The concern is not only individual intention, but that systems shape clinical behaviour. When death is offered alongside, and sometimes before, comprehensive care, medicine drifts from its commitment to healing and accompaniment through suffering.

Assisted dying does not simply end lives. It risks reshaping clinical priorities and professional identity. Medicine is built on the obligation to remain with patients through uncertainty. Compassion in medicine requires more than offering a path to death. Inserting assisted dying into medicine, especially with critical gaps in care, reshapes medicine in response to system failures rather than solving them.

References:
1) BMJ. Patients are coerced to live, rather than die – assisted dying around the world [video]. YouTube. 14 Feb 2026. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMydoyef3Yc&t=11s [Accessed 24 Feb 2026].

2) Shannon D. UN committee rightly calls out Canada’s systemic devaluation of disability. Macdonald-Laurier Institute. 9 Jun 2025. Available: https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/un-committee-rightly-calls-out-canadas-syste... [Accessed 24 Feb 2026].

3) Coelho R, Shannon D, Lemmens T. Safeguard failures in Canada’s MAiD system. BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care. Published Online First: 27 Jan 2026. doi: 10.1136/spcare-2025-006046

4) Canada Department of Justice. Bill C-7: An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying). 2023. Available: https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/pl/charter-charte/c7.html [Accessed 24 Feb 2026].

5) Coelho R. Disabled Canadians should never feel compelled to die: let’s give them the support they need to live. Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Jan 2026. Available: https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/disabled-canadians-should-never-feel-compell... [Accessed 24 Feb 2026].

6) Chochinov HM, Fins JJ. Is Medical Assistance in Dying Part of Palliative Care? JAMA. 2024 Sep 11. doi: 10.1001/jama.2024.12088.

7) Pesut B, Thorne S, Sharp H, et al. Assessors’ decision-making regarding applicant eligibility for Track 2 medical assistance in dying in Canada: a qualitative study. CMAJ 2026;198:E1-E9. doi:10.1503/cmaj.251071.

8) Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers. The interpretation and role of “reasonably foreseeable” in MAiD practice. Feb 2022. Available: https://camapcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/The-Interpretation-and... [Accessed 24 Feb 2026].

9) Health Canada. Model practice standard for medical assistance in dying (MAID). 2023. Available: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/health-syst... [Accessed 24 Feb 2026].

Previous articles by Dr Ramona Coelho:

• Disabled Canadians should never be compelled to die (Link). 
• How euthanasia fails Canada's most vulnerable (Link).
• Shouldn't care come before euthanasia (Link). 
• Legislative and practise problems in Canada's MAiD regime (Link).

British Medical Association: assisted dying is not health care.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An article published in the UK Spectator on March 10 reports that the British Medical Association consultants voted that assisted dying is not a health activity and, if legalized, they demand an opt-in model for providers. The Spectator reported:

Motion 46 was proposed by the South Regional consultants committee and argued that Kim Leadbeater’s bill raises ‘serious potential moral hazards for consultants, and serious potential adverse impacts on health services.’ The two-part motion argues that, when discussing assisted dying with the government, the BMA must be clear that if the bill were to become law:

An opt-in model is adopted for providers, and no consultant shall be expected to be involved in any part of the assisted dying process, including having no obligation to either suggest assisted dying to patients, nor refer patients for it.

The second part of the motion contends too that:

Assisted dying is not a health activity and it must not take place in NHS or other health facilities, and assisted dying providers must be employed under separate contractual arrangements.

Both parts of the motion were passed by the BMA consultants conference. So, there we have it: senior NHS Consultants believe the Leadbeater Bill presents both ‘serious moral hazards to consultants’ and could have ‘serious potential adverse impacts’ on health services in the UK.

The government panel that is deciding on amendments to Kim Leadbeater's assisted suicide bill have so far rejected every proposed amendment that would tighten up the language of the bill.

A large number of MP's who supported Leadbeater's assisted dying bill at Second Reading indicated that the final version of the bill would determine how they vote at Third and final reading on the bill.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition ia urging British Members of Parliament to defeat the Leadbeater Assisted Dying bill at third reading.

British doctors want to raise the issue of assisted suicide with their patients.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Jessica Elgot who is the Deputy Political Editor with the Guardian reported on January 15 that: 

Doctors are preparing to speak out against changes to the proposed assisted dying law that could ban physicians from raising the procedures with patients." 

The British Medical Association which will urge the government committee that is studying the British assisted suicide bill, to permit doctors to introduce assisted suicide with their patients.

This is important because pro-death doctors will readily bring up the option of assisted suicide. Jurisdictions where only the patient can bring up assisted suicide and doctors cannot introduce it, have lower assisted suicide death rates.

Elgot reported:

The British Medical Association, which will give evidence to a committee of MPs scrutinising Kim Leadbeater’s private member’s bill, has said doctors must be allowed to raise assisted dying sensitively with patients if it becomes law.

The BMA said it would be “an unacceptable intrusion of legislation into the privacy of the consulting room”

The BMA’s official position is neutral on whether assisted dying should pass – but the union has agreed a collective position that doctors should not be put in the position where they are barred from raising it with patients.

Elgot also reported that at least 30 members of the British parliament who voted in support of assisted suicide at second reading have stated that they may oppose assisted suicide in the final vote if the bill allows doctors to raise the issue with their patients.

More information on the UK assisted suicide bill.

• Care Not Killing Alliance seeks submissions concerning the UK assisted suicide bill (Link).
• Assisted suicide is not the answer to the NHS financial crisis (Link).
• The British assisted suicide bill can be defeated (Link).
• The British parliament passes assisted suicide bill at second reading (Link).

BMA goes Neutral on Assisted Suicide. Leading Advocate admits more research on Painful Deaths is needed.

Dr Gordon Macdonald
Chief Executive of Care Not Killing

Dr Gordon Macdonald

On Tuesday last week the British Medical Association’s (BMA) Annual Representatives Meeting (ARM) passed a motion by a narrow majority of just 4 votes (49% to 48%) which shifted the organisation to a position of neutrality on ‘assisted dying’ from its previous position of opposition. By ‘assisted dying’ the BMA is referring to both assisted suicide and euthanasia.

The BMA debate followed a poll of its members last year. That poll itself was the result of a motion passed at the BMA’s 2019 ARM which had been proposed by Dr Jacky Davis, a radiologist and Chair of Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying and Board member of Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society).

Last year’s poll showed that 40% of BMA members who responded voted for the union to adopt a position of support for assisted suicide and 30% for euthanasia.1  However, beneath the headline grabbing top-line numbers there was a complex picture of medical opinion on the question of whether doctors should be empowered to end patients’ lives.

The closer a specialty is to the care and support of dying people; the less likely its specialists are to support assisted suicide and euthanasia. In the poll 70% and 79% of palliative medicine doctors wanted the BMA to stay opposed to assisted suicide and euthanasia respectively – with backing for active support in single digits. Personal opposition was higher – 76% and 83% – and higher still were the percentages unwilling to participate if legalised: 76% and 84%.2

General Practitioners (family doctors) and geriatricians share this closeness to the lived experience of end of life care, and were similarly averse: 39% of GPs who responded wanted the BMA to remain opposed to assisted suicide compared to just 34% in favour and 46% were personally opposed whilst 43% were personally in favour. Similarly, 44% of geriatricians wanted the BMA to remain opposed to assisted suicide compared to 27% in favour of BMA support for assisted suicide whilst 52% were personally opposed and only 36% personally in favour of a change in the law.3

That brings us to this week’s debate because the poll was conducted on the assumption that any legislation being introduced would be limited to an assisted suicide law applying to adults who are terminally or seriously ill, mentally competent and who voluntarily request assistance to end their lives.4  However, the motion proposed for debate (and approved) has no such caveats.5  In essence, the BMA has opted for neutrality regardless of the nature of any future legislation. So the BMA is now neutral on whether or not those suffering from minor non-terminal conditions and who may have years to live, disabled people, those with psychiatric illnesses, children or just elderly people who are depressed, lonely and tired of life will be allowed under a future law to request assisted suicide or euthanasia.

Then on Thursday this week the Spectator published an article on its website by Dr Joel Zivot6  in which he stated that his research into the deaths of death row inmates has shown that in many cases of those who choose to die by lethal injection they experience pulmonary edema and essentially drown in their own secretions. They may well be suffering pain and distress in the process, often including gasping for breath. Other research suggests that signs of pulmonary edema occur in 84% of cases studied.7  This is relevant because the same drugs (Pentobarbital and Secobarbital) are used in assisted suicide deaths in the USA and euthanasia deaths in Canada.

Link to the podcast "Let's Find Out" between assisted suicide lobby leader Dr Jacky Davis and Dr Joel Zivot (Link to the podcast).

In a Spectator podcast made available online on Thursday evening,8 Dr Zivot discusses his article with Dr Jacky Davis. Dr Davis admitted that she was unaware of this issue previously and acknowledged that Dr Zivot may be right in his findings, but said that more research needs to be done to establish the facts and that Dr Zivot should not be making this information available to the public until that research had been undertaken. She even suggested that the doctors involved in conducting the assisted suicide deaths should be the ones to do the research.

In response, Dr Zivot stated that it was for those who are pushing for the legalisation of assisted suicide or euthanasia to justify their stance and that the onus is on the advocates of ‘assisted dying’ to determine what they have done. He said that the practice of ‘assisted dying’ could be construed as a poor experiment and the onus is on the advocates of ‘assisted dying’ to show that it is “sound and reasonable”.

Now there is some suggestion that the reason for the build up of fluid in the lungs of those who die by lethal injection may be due to the fact that large amount of drugs are being given intravenously over a short timeframe rather than taken orally and that this damages the lungs.9  However, since no post-mortems (autopsies) relating to those who have died by assisted suicide or euthanasia have studied and reported on this aspect of the deaths in question, it is impossible to know if that is indeed the case. Moreover, in Canada, at least in Nova Scotia10, intravenous delivery of Medical Assistance in Dying (euthanasia) seems to be common which raises the question of how many of the 7,595 people who died by MAiD in Canada during 2020 also experienced pulmonary edema, or the ‘drowning’ effect, identified by Dr Zivot in his death row examples. Evidently there is a need for more research.

Whether or not the doctors and families involved in assisted suicide and euthanasia deaths in the USA and Canada will be willing or interested to investigate this matter further remains an open question. What is clear, however, is that rather than rushing into changing the law to follow their North American counterparts in legalising assisted suicide or euthanasia, British legislators should take a much more cautious approach. The BMA should have done so also.

Citations:

1. https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/ethics/end-of-life/physician-assisted-dying/physician-assisted-dying-survey
2. https://www.bma.org.uk/media/3367/bma-physician-assisted-dying-survey-report-oct-2020.pdf, Appendix C, pp. 99-117.
3. Ibid.
4. https://www.bma.org.uk/media/2353/bma-physician-assisted-dying-info-pack-april-2020.pdf, page 3.
5. https://www.bma.org.uk/media/4579/2021-arm-resolutions-day-2-am.pdf, Resolution 70.
6. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/last-rights-assisted-suicide-is-neither-painless-nor-dignified
   
7. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/21/793177589/gasping-for-air-autopsies-reveal-troubling-effects-of-lethal-injection?t=1631783805580&t=1631894393773
8. https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/payday-who-s-afraid-of-rising-wages-
9. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/21/793177589/gasping-for-air-autopsies-reveal-troubling-effects-of-lethal-injection?t=1631783805580&t=1631894393773
10. Crumley E.T. et. al.; “How is the medical assistance in dying (MAID) process carried out in Nova Scotia, Canada? A qualitative process model flowchart study”, https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/7/e048698

Care Not Killing disappointed at “divisive” BMA vote, which shows divide between doctors on assisted suicide and euthanasia

Dr Gordon Macdonald

Following today’s extremely close vote, 49% – 48% that sees the British Medical Association adopt a neutral stance on assisted suicide and euthanasia, Dr Gordon Macdonald, Chief Executive of Care Not Killing commented: 

“We are naturally disappointed at the divisive nature of this vote as it exposes the divide between doctors who care for patients at their end of life whether in hospitals or hospices, who oppose assisted suicide and euthanasia and those medics who work in unrelated discipline such as child and adolescent psychiatry and occupational health.

“As the BMA’s own survey found doctors at the coal face, who deliver care to the elderly and terminally ill, who work in Palliative Care, Geriatric Medicine and General Practice continue to oppose assisted suicide and euthanasia, because they know it is not needed and the subtle pressure it could put on patients to end their lives prematurely.

“The doctors’ group should have used this conference to find out why their members who are least likely to treat those with terminal and chronic conditions, such as medical students still training in universities are most likely to support assisted suicide and euthanasia. Is this simply a generational shift or a lack of understanding of the range of treatments available to palliative doctors?”

Dr Macdonald continued: 

“Was any consideration given to the concerns of those doctors who work with disabled people and elderly about the discriminatory message that singling out terminally ill and disabled people would send, the worrying link between legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia and increases in the suicide rate which we see in Oregon and the Netherlands or the erosion of so-called safeguards?

“We only have to look at Canada, which legalised so called ‘physician assisted dying” in 2015, to see what can happen. This law which was originally limited to those with a foreseeable death, came into force in the summer of 2016.

“In September 2019, the Quebec Superior Court struck down the requirement that a natural death must be ‘reasonably foreseeable’. This followed the case of Alan Nichols, a former school caretaker who was physically healthy, but struggled with depression. His life was ended by lethal injection in July. In the same year we saw the chilling case of Roger Foley, who was repeatedly offered the drugs to kill himself, while being denied the social care to live a dignified life, due to the cost.

“At the same time, deaths from lethal injection continue to rise. In 2020 7,595 had their lives ended this way, including 1412 who cited loneliness as a reason for opting to be killed, no doubt this was compounded by COVID.

“The rapid extension of Canadian law to those with chronic disease, mental health problems and disability shows the fallacy of trusting in proposed legal safeguards and how only safe system is the one we currently have – a complete prohibition on state sanctioned killing.”

Dr Macdonald concluded: 

“The BMA now finds itself out of step with medical organisations such as the World Medical Association (WMA) which has recently reiterated its opposition to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide saying, ‘No physician should be forced to participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide, nor should any physician be obliged to make referral decisions to this end…’.

“Our current laws protect vulnerable people and do not need changing, instead we need to refocus our attention on how to ensure we provide the very best palliative care to those who need it.”

For media inquiries, please call 07970 162225.

ENDS

Editors Notes

Care Not Killing is a UK-based alliance bringing together over 40 organisations - human rights and disability rights organisations, health care and palliative care groups, faith-based organisations groups - and thousands of concerned individuals.

We have three key aims:

• to promote more and better palliative care; 
• to ensure that existing laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide are not weakened or repealed;  
• to inform public opinion further against any weakening of the law. *As this story is dealing with suicide, please could we ask that you include details about organisations that offer help and support to vulnerable people who might be feeling suicidal such as the Samaritans, CALM or similar - Thank you.*

British Medical Association (BMA) Consultation on Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide

The following is the notice from the Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK concerning the BMA consultation on euthanasia and assisted suicide.

On Thursday 6 February, the British Medical Association (BMA) emailed all members, inviting them to respond to a consultation on 'physician-assisted dying' – which it describes as covering both assisted suicide and euthanasia, and does not limit in scope to those with terminal illnesses. Currently, the BMA is opposed to both practices, a policy reaffirmed at the 2016 annual representative meeting (ARM).

Now, 160,000 members are asked 'whether they believe the BMA should actively support, actively oppose, or neither actively support nor actively oppose (take a neutral stance on) a change in the law to permit doctors to'

• 'prescribe drugs for eligible patients to self-administer to end their own life.'
• 'administer drugs with the intention of ending an eligible patient's life.' 

Members are also asked about what has influenced their view.

The consultation runs until 27 February. It is important that as many doctors as possible respond, in the light of the evidence both against a change in the law and against a change to neutrality.

How you can get involved

• If you are a doctor, please ensure you respond. BMA members are being alerted as to how to respond by email; members yet to see such an email should check spam, or else contact the BMA if they still haven’t received an email by 11 February.
• Please discuss the issue with doctors known to you, and encourage them to support continued opposition. 
• As regards reasons to maintain opposition, you may wish to note that if legalised:

1. Vulnerable patients may feel pressure to end their lives prematurely; coercion is hard to detect.
2. Social and existential factors, not pain, drive most assisted suicides in Oregon; in 2018, 54% cited fear of being a burden. 
3. Doctors’ involvement in ending life makes it a standard (and cheaper) treatment option. 
4. Safe regulation has proved elusive and does not stop illegal practice or abuse. 

• You or others may find our overview of the consultation and the issue of neutrality helpful.
• You may wish to share our BMA campaign video on Facebook or other social media. 
• You or others may find doctors’ perspectives useful: visit or share the website of Our Duty of Care, a group of doctors who originally came together at the time of the RCP consultation last year. 

Medical neutrality would be cast by campaigners as a green light for lawmakers to weaken or repeal the laws on assisted suicide and euthanasia. In matters of life and death, where a wealth of evidence casts grave doubts on the safety and ethics of assisted suicide, doctors must maintain clarity – by maintaining opposition.

Link to more information on the BMA consultation (Link).