The British Medical Association (BMA) has dropped its opposition to assisted dying after a landmark vote. In doing so, it marks a journey from professional principle onto the ethical fence.
This is not the first time the BMA has declared itself neutral on the termination of post-natal human life. In 2005, the organisation voted to switch from opposition to neutrality on physician-assisted suicide but that position was overturned the following year amid charges that the policy shift had been achieved through an ‘extraordinary manoeuvre’ and ‘procedural tactics’. A decade later, in 2016, the body again rejected adoption of a neutral stance following a consultation with 500 association members and the general public.
By 2019, the BBC was quoting the BMA’s outlook as:
‘(T)he ethics of clinical practice, as the principal purpose of medicine is to improve patients’ quality of life, not to foreshorten it’.
If the life of the individual is not inviolable, then nor are the rights that life confers
A parliamentary briefing prepared by the BMA in 2020 said ‘UK law should not be changed to permit assisted dying in any form (including assisted dying with involvement from doctors)’ and gave as its principal reason:
‘Medical involvement in assisted dying could fundamentally alter the ethos within which medical care is provided.
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