Communications Manager Paul Huxley comments on the newly released report from Nuffield Council which suggests widespread support for euthanasia. In fact, the report is not all that it seems
Today marks the release of a report suggesting that there is widespread support for euthanasia, leading to further pressure in the media for the introduction of so-called ‘assisted dying’.
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics released its interim report having commissioned an English ‘Citizens’ Jury’ to hear evidence, vote on the issue and make policy recommendations.
After this process, twenty of the members voted in favour of legalising euthanasia and/or assisted suicide, with seven against and one undecided.
At first glance, this appears to be conclusive evidence that the UK public supports a change in the law to legalise ‘assisted dying’.
But the report is not all that it seems – there are good reasons why we should ignore its recommendations and continue to ban euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Biased jury selection
The Citizens’ Jury is intended to be representative of the public. They sought to match the participants to the English population as closely as possible on ‘gender’, age, ethnicity and other factors.
This included an attempt to make sure that the chosen members roughly matched the overall beliefs of the English public on ‘assisted dying’. Because of this, they sought to match the group against their own polling from February this year, which had 69% of the public supporting ‘assisted dying’.[1]
This means that going into this process, seventeen of the jury members were already in favour of legalising ‘assisted dying’, with just five against. This makes the headline figure of a 20-7 vote far less persuasive. In reality, the jury’s deliberation ended with the pro-euthanasia side gaining three members and the anti-euthanasia side gaining two members.
Think about that – it would only have taken one person to swing in the other direction for the overall change to be against euthanasia. This is far from convincing evidence that the debate is over and that we should roll over and introduce ‘assisted dying’.
At its formation, the group had more than three times as many supporters of ‘assisted dying’ than it had detractors. Most people are agreeable and want to fit in with the group they are in. This alone is easily enough to account for some of the undecided members switching towards the majority opinion.
In a real jury, in a criminal trial, jury members are expected to start from a position of neutrality and ignorance on the matter at hand, taking only the evidence they are presented into consideration. This report would have been much more telling and interesting had the researchers prioritised members of the public who answered ‘neither agree nor disagree’ or ‘don’t know’.
But as it stands, this report tells us approximately nothing significant about the persuasiveness of arguments for and against euthanasia.
Jury’s support for flawed policies
As well as voting for or against the introduction of ‘assisted dying’, the jury was asked to vote on policy details, should the law be changed. Each member was allowed to pick up to five measures that they would support and five that they opposed.
If ‘assisted dying’ were to be introduced, the group strongly said that it should be for those with terminal illnesses, and that patients must have capacity to make their decision.
Immediately, the problems are apparent. ‘Terminal illness’ is not a clear category. It could be extended to illnesses like diabetes (which has happened in Oregon), and accurate prognoses of death are not possible where there is a timeframe of months or years. Likewise, we treat people who want to die with compassion by recognising that their capacity is impaired. People who are needlessly scared of a painful death or who feel like they are a burden are not going to have genuine capacity to make these kinds of decisions.
The group also voted strongly in favour of both methods of ‘assisted dying’ – where doctors either prescribe or administer the drugs. Most of the other proposed policies (e.g. euthanasia for under-18s) had more mixed support, with jury members either expressly opposing them or supporting contradictory measures.
The panel also voted on policy suggestions should ‘assisted dying’ not be introduced. This time, they were allowed to respond to every suggestion, with ‘like it’, ‘can live with it’ or ‘dislike it’.
The answers to these questions are not very enlightening at all. Every single measure on the list was strongly supported by the group. Given the overall support in the group for a change in the law, it is no surprise that measures that would liberalise assisted dying in other ways, or more likely lead to a law change in the future, had the group’s support.
Aspirational policies relating to improving palliative care and care homes were also reliably supported. This suggests that the jury as a whole believed that euthanasia can be introduced while also improving palliative care standards. This is extremely wishful thinking. Our population is ageing and our economy is under increasing pressure. If euthanasia is introduced, all of the pressure will go immediately to expanding its reach[2] and funding will not be increased to treating illnesses (e.g. through new, expensive drugs) or ensuring quality end of life care.
Is morality decided by the majority?
There is just a wider problem where we think that something of such moral significance should just be decided by majority rule.
Throughout history we have seen wickedness and injustice occur simply because the majority supported it. In a relativistic age, it is sad that our leaders are not willing to stand and speak against assisted suicide and euthanasia. Instead, we have a biased jury reflecting the uninformed popular opinions of our society – which themselves are profoundly slanted by one-sided stories in popular soaps and dramas.
Time after time, MPs have rejected calls to change the law, but sadly the loud emotive voices – with no new arguments – end up with influence. There is now a risk that this report, as well as other evidence, will be misrepresented to argue for a change in the law.
The problems with neutrality and autonomy
One of the problems with the ‘assisted dying’ debate is that we are even talking about it.
We should know – deep down we do know – that killing people, and helping them to kill themselves, is simply wrong. Every time we ask people whether we should introduce ‘assisted dying’, we are blunting our consciences to this fact and making euthanasia more plausible.
Raising the policy suggestion of ‘assisted dying’ and treating it even-handedly between those who are pro-killing and those who are anti-killing is itself giving equal weight to views that should not be contemplated equally.
When this is done in a culture of radical autonomy and individualism, most people have a strong bias towards letting people do whatever they want. Those who want to limit other’s autonomy have an enormous uphill battle. They are portrayed as moral busybodies with phrases equivalent to “if you don’t like assisted death, don’t get one”.
People on the fence see that there are arguments on both sides and lazily default to the assumption that there is no overwhelming reason not to allow it. Who are we to stop them?
Despite the consistent slippery slopes of euthanasia we have seen overseas, people believe that the United Kingdom will be the one place where the safeguards hold, where the law isn’t stretched and where vulnerable people aren’t coerced.
The gods of radical autonomy and individualism are no good for us or our society. We are not isolated individuals, utterly detached from everyone around us. Even actions that seem to be all about us have consequences on others. Making out that it is moral and normal to kill people or help them kill themselves has enormous knock-on effects for society.
As God’s image-bearers, each one of us is given wonderful liberty – we are enabled to live lives of love, creativity, with real choices and real consequences. But our autonomy is not an absolute good that trumps others’ wellbeing. It does not even trump our own wellbeing.
Freedom is given with a purpose: to accurately represent God’s image on earth. Radical autonomy is a parody of this true freedom that sets ourselves up as gods in his place.
Euthanasia advocates claim that suffering robs people of their dignity.
In truth, it is the beliefs that we are our own gods, that none of us bear God’s image and that we can do whatever we want with our bodies that rob us of our dignity.
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[1] Care Not Killing has long warned that polls on assisted suicide are misleading due to widespread ignorance of assisted suicide and the arguments against. This particular poll was better, with the term at least being defined (and showing public lower support than Dignity in Dying claims). Nevertheless, it’s unclear how many would have taken the time to carefully read the definitions provided, which may lead to an overestimation of the support for the policy.
[2] For comparison, consider what happened after the UK introduced same-sex ‘marriage’ in 2013. Immediately, campaign groups switched their entire focus onto ‘trans rights’. Whatever they might claim now, if assisted dying is introduced, all the energy of campaign groups like Dignity in Dying will immediately switch to expanding its reach: to under-18s, to people in mental distress – to breaking down, piece by piece, all the safeguards that they currently claim to support.
