Euthanasia
Pro-Euthanasia groups are currently
trying to push euthanasia legislation through the house of Lords in the form of
the Joffe Bill
In writing to Members of the House of
Lords, and MPs, you can remind them of this week’s important opinion poll of
British doctors. 61% state that they do not want euthanasia legalised – with a
further 13% undecided. Most doctors are so opposed – some 76% - that they say
that if euthanasia were legalised they would refuse to perform it. Not one
single palliative care doctor who responded to the survey said they would be
prepared to practice euthanasia or assisted suicide.
Professor Tim Maughan the director of Wales Cancer
Trials Network at CardiffUniversity put it succinctly:“this is not what we
became doctors to do.” This debate has been manufactured by lobby groups with a
clear agenda. Despite all the publicity hypearound the tragic cases of Diane
Pretty and Reg Crew, half the doctors who were surveyed said that in the past
three years not a single patient or their relatives had requested euthanasia.
59% of the doctors said that the British Medical Association were right to
resist moves to legalise euthanasia. The Hospice Movement has warned of the
dire consequences. Dr.Nigel Sykes, Medical director of St.Christopher’s Hospice
in
Write to Peers at the House of Lords,