Doctors go to court to fight ‘rigged’ policy change on assisted suicide

Nov 4, 2019 by Jill

by Andrew Gregory, The Times:

The decision by the leading body for the medical profession to adopt a neutral stance is being challenged by its own members.

Three doctors have won the right to launch a legal challenge against the Royal College of Physicians after it dropped its opposition to assisted dying.

Britain’s most influential medical body adopted a “neutral” stance in March after a poll of members that was branded “absurd” and a “sham” by critics.

The Charity Commission had denied the doctors — David Randall, Dermot Kearney and Kathryn Myers — permission to bring proceedings against the college, or RCP. The High Court has now given approval. The decision paves the way for a legal battle over the most contentious question in medicine.

The college — the largest for hospital doctors and England’s oldest medical professional standards body — shifted to a “neutral” stance after 6,885 members, 29% of those polled, responded on whether the law, which prohibits doctors from aiding suicide, should change.

The survey found that 43% of respondents opposed a change, 32% wanted reform, and 25% backed a neutral stance.

Doctors who specialise in relieving the pain of dying patients were the strongest opponents of change, with 80% against.

But in a move that stunned the profession, the college adopted a neutral position because the top choice was not backed by 60% of the votes. Critics said using such a threshold to retain the RCP’s stance amounted to rigging the poll.

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