More people believe it is acceptable to break the law to help a friend or loved who wants to die than believe it is wrong, a snapshot of UK public opinion on assisted dying has revealed.
The finding comes as MPs weigh possible changes to laws governing end-of-life decisions and as a terminally ill Lancashire woman who is preparing to travel to Switzerland to end her life has described the UK law against assisted dying as “cruel and anachronistic”.
Rosemary Walker, who has incurable blood cancer, spoke out as research carried out by Ipsos UK showed that 38% thought it was acceptable to break the law versus 29% who did not.
MPs are preparing to recommend how ministers should respond to calls for the UK government to follow Australia, New Zealand and 10 US states in allowing terminally ill, mentally competent adults to end their own lives.
Two-thirds of the public also supported legalising assisted dying, the research showed.
Walker said: “The current law is forcing me to choose a death I don’t want – hundreds of miles from home with strangers and none of us wants that.”
With hundreds of dying people taking their own lives each year and dozens more travelling to Switzerland, one of several European nations with more relaxed laws, 65% of people in the UK believe it should become legal for a doctor to assist an adult of sound mind with less than six months to live to voluntarily end their own life subject to high court confirmation.
Sixty-one per cent of people also support a doctor being able to administer life-ending medicine, although there were signs of a small fall in support for that practice compared with 2022 (68%), when there was a slight variation in the question wording.
The polling also showed a small drop in the number of people who favoured assisted dying for adults enduring mental or emotional suffering from 40% in 2022 to 35% in 2023, although again with a slight variation in wording.
The figures cement the stable level of support for reform and come after hundreds of people contributed to a highly charged parliamentary inquiry into assisted dying that heard that with the practice remaining illegal in the UK, the Swiss organisation Dignitas has helped 540 British people kill themselves in the past two decades.
Last month, the BBC News presenter Evan Davis revealed how his father, 92, killed himself last summer in Surrey after deciding it was a better option than living with failing eyesight, incontinence and relying on round-the-clock care workers, whom he described in a letter to his children as “intruders in my house overnight”.
Davis said it was “very sad to think of him having to plan all this on his own”.
Campaigners against assisted dying said public concern about legalising the practice was likely to be fuelled by stories coming out of Canada and other countries with more liberal assisted-dying laws than were likely to be proposed in the UK. In Canada, a veteran complained assisted dying was suggested when he contacted a helpline for guidance with dealing with post-traumatic stress.
“The more people hear about what is happening [in other countries] the more danger they see in changing the law,” said Alistair Thompson, the spokesperson for the Care Not Killing campaign group.
But Sarah Wootton, the chief executive of Dignity in Dying, a charity that supports a change in the law, said: “With assisted-dying bills making their way through the Scottish, Jersey and Isle of Man parliaments and the launch of the assisted-dying inquiry in Westminster, change is now inevitable. We urge the next government to listen to the public and make time for this important debate.”
Speaking about Walker, she said: “The public know that denying her this last right is deeply wrong, and polls have consistently shown that support for reform is high, across all parts of society and the country, going back decades.”
In July, Helen Whately, the health minister with responsibility for end of life care, told the House of Commons health and social care select committee inquiry into assisted dying that “if the will of parliament is that the law on assisted dying should change, then government would not stand in its way”.
She said it was a matter for MPs’ consciences. But she did not commit to the government guaranteeing sufficient parliamentary time for debate. The last time parliament considered legalising assisted dying, in 2015, MPs voted against the motion 330 to 118.
Since then assisted-dying laws have progressed in Scotland, the Isle of Man and Jersey. In June, the Royal College of Physicians dropped its opposition to legalising assisted dying, moving to a position of neutrality. Sixty-one per cent of members supported a law change to allow the practice, while 29% were opposed. Campaigners for assisted dying believe this means fewer MPs would oppose reform after many cited opposition from the medical profession at the last vote.
An ageing population also means demand for palliative care services will rise from about 245,000 people in 2021-22 to just under 380,000 in 2030-31, the charity Sue Ryder Care estimates.
“Assisted dying understandably raises strong emotions, but this new data continues the pattern found in opinion polls over several years that most Britons support changing the law to allow assisted dying, under certain circumstances,” said Gideon Skinner, the head of political research at Ipsos UK.
“Those circumstances and safeguards are important – there is less of a consensus of support for non-terminal cases of mental suffering, for under-18s, or for breaking the law as it now stands.”
The British Social Attitudes survey, which has recorded stable support for “voluntary euthanasia” since the 1980s, has noted that those with no religion are most likely to support it. The 2021 census showed that 37% of people in England and Wales describe themselves as having “no religion”, a rise of more than 22 percentage points over 20 years.
At least one person with severe and terminal illnesses such as a cancer with a low survival rate, chronic ischemic heart conditions or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease kills themselves each day in England, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. They must do so without help from a doctor or friend or family member, unless they risk prosecution.
However, opponents of assisted dying told the recent parliamentary inquiry of a man who wanted to kill himself within two weeks, but was alive 11 years later. They described another who had discussed assisted dying but when asked what he would like to do, had said he would first go on a cruise, and went on three such trips before he died. They warn that legalising the practice would increase the risk of coercion and elder abuse.
