Citizens’ jury in England backs euthanasia for terminally ill

A citizen jury has voted overwhelmingly to legalise euthanasia for terminally ill people after eight weeks of hearing from experts.

Twenty of the 28 jury members based in England agreed that the law should be changed, while seven people disagreed and one person indicated that he had not yet made a decision.

The citizens’ jury’s findings have been published and the Westminster parliament is expected to debate the issue in the coming months. Labour peer Charlie Falconer, a former Lord Chancellor, has published a private member’s bill to legalise euthanasia, and Labour MP Jake Richards is considering to submit a bill after finishing 11th in a vote last week. Keir Starmer has backed a free vote on the issue.

Citizens’ juries are a way to test public opinion on complex issues and are considered more nuanced than polls.

The euthanasia jury was commissioned by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCOB), an independent policy and research centre that aims to put ethics at the heart of health decisions.

The group was said to have provided a representative sample of the population, both in terms of demographics and attitudes towards euthanasia. Opinion polls have shown that a majority of the public supports the legalisation of euthanasia for terminally ill people.

Thirty jurors were selected from 7,000 invitations sent to randomly selected households in England. They met between April and June and spent a total of around 24 hours examining and discussing the issues. Two of the jurors were unable to attend the final session due to illness.

The jury supported euthanasia for people with a terminal illness who can make their own decisions. They supported both euthanasia, where health professionals prescribe lethal drugs for eligible patients to take, and voluntary euthanasia, where a health professional administers lethal drugs.

The top three reasons for supporting a change in the law were: an end to pain, the ability to end your own life, and the knowledge that you can die with dignity.

The jurors were asked to consider whether the law should be changed and what a euthanasia law should include and exclude. If the law was not changed, the jury was asked if they had any other recommendations.

On the latter, almost all the jurors said that helping a family member or friend travel to Dignitas, the Swiss clinic that offers euthanasia to citizens of other countries, should be decriminalized. They also wanted more funding to improve palliative care on the NHS.

The main reasons for not supporting a change in the law were that the law could be used for the wrong reasons and that the law could be misinterpreted or abused.

Worldwide, more than two dozen jurisdictions – including New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, ten states in the US and all six states in Australia – allow some form of euthanasia.

Bills to legalise euthanasia are currently before the parliaments of the Isle of Man, Jersey and Scotland.

Anne Kerr, chair of the NCOB, said: “The panel’s findings provide broad support for a change in the law in England, with some important details about what this should entail. This is an important finding that will be valuable to policymakers considering whether and how to implement changes to the law.”

Sarah Wootton, director of Dignity in Dying, said: “There is no doubt that the public wants this reform to happen… As MPs sit down to debate a bill on euthanasia for the first time in almost a decade, they must consider whether they will heed the call for compassion, or maintain an unpopular and unsafe status quo.”

Gordon Macdonald, CEO of Care Not Killing, said: “At a time when we are seeing how quickly safeguards have been eroded in countries like Canada, Belgium and the Netherlands, leading to people with disabilities and mental health issues, even eating disorders, now being euthanised, I would urge the government to focus on fixing our broken palliative care system… rather than reliving this dangerous and ideological policy.”