The Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCB) and its “citizen’s jury” has been called “deeply flawed” by Care Not Killing (CNK), a group which campaigns against euthanasia and in favour of greater palliative care.
The council and its “jury” have no legal powers but have given their support to the idea that families be allowed to take elderly or disabled relatives abroad to die, without the protection of any safeguards.
The idea behind the jury, which has 28 members, is to allow members of the public to consider the issue of euthanasia in more detail than a standard opinion poll or survey would allow.
However, even from its inception, CNK noted that there are serious impartiality concerns surrounding the jury and the NCB which established it.
CNK pointed to the fact that the director of the NCB was previously the director of pro-euthanasia group, Compassion in Dying. Another NCB council member was also the chair of Compassion in Dying, while the jury project itself was funded by a pro-euthanasia organisation.
Gordon MacDonald, CEO of CNK also took issue with the selection criteria for the jury, which he said “included an in-built two thirds (65 per cent) majority of people who were either in favour or strongly in favour of changing the law on assisted suicide and euthanasia before taking any evidence".
"Most people would think that this makes a mockery of the term jury," he said.
Macdonald said that given the composition of the jury and the background of the NCB leadership, it is no surprise that it came to the conclusions it did.
“Had the Nuffield Council on Bioethics chosen a jury which was rigorously impartial with no strong views about assisted dying the conclusions reached would almost certainly have been different," he said.
Macdonald then pointed to polling carried out on behalf of CNK that suggested that significant sections of the public have concerns about changing the law on euthanasia. One of the main areas of concern is that vulnerable people will be pressured into ending their life prematurely by relatives or even by the NHS itself, given the grim reality that death is more cost-effective than long-term palliative care.
Parliament is currently considering a new law that would make it easier for people to choose to end their life with medical supervision.
CNK has called for the “dangerous and controversial” bill to be scrapped, and for greater effort to be placed on rebuilding Britain’s “broken” palliative and social care systems.
