Legalising assisted suicide in the UK would damage effective palliative care, medics have warned. naive to deny that ‘assisted dying’ laws could be exploited“It is also perhaps naive to deny that assisted dying laws could be exploited by unscrupulous relatives seeking to protect their inheritance, or a bureaucratic health service buckling under the cost of providing palliative care to an ageing population”. Writing for The Daily Mail, he said: “I have witnessed the amazing, compassionate support of hospice and palliative care teams during intensely stressful times. We should strengthen, not undermine, a branch of medicine pioneered in Britain to deliver the best end-of-life care and unrivalled levels of support for families.”ParliamentIn December, an MP and campaigner for assisted suicide claimed that support for assisted suicide is growing among his parliamentary colleagues and those in favour are “getting towards a majority”. In 2015, MPs voted by 330 to 118 to protect vulnerable people by maintaining current end-of-life safeguards.

Source: The Times January 12, 2024 15:29 UTC