Shrewsbury campaigner Noel's plea as 84 per cent back change in assisted dying law
The law on assisted dying must be changed now, according to terminally-ill Shrewsbury campaigner Noel Conway, following a new poll saying the vast majority of people support it.
The largest poll ever conducted on assisted dying has found that 84 per cent of people in Great Britain support a change in the law.
A survey of more than 5,000 people from England, Wales and Scotland said they would support a change in the law to allow terminally ill, mentally competent adults to have an assisted death, provided they met strict upfront safeguards.
Mr Conway, 69, from Shrewsbury unsuccessfully campaigned for a change in the law.
The former lecturer was diagnosed with terminal motor neurone disease and recently brought a legal case challenging the blanket ban on assisted dying.
He said: “I do not want to die, but I am going to.
"I simply want to be able to decide when the time is right for me, and drift off peacefully at home with my family around me.
"If I lived in Toronto, California or Melbourne I would be able to. But here in the UK my only options are to suffer until the bitter end, to remove my ventilator and slowly suffocate, or to travel to Switzerland at huge financial and personal cost.
"This is downright cruel, and this latest poll has shown that people across the country, from all walks of life, will not stand for it. For MPs to continue to ignore the suffering of dying people like me and the views of their own constituents is a grave dereliction of duty. The law must change.”
The poll, conducted by Populus, found that support for assisted dying has increased from 82 per cent since their last survey in 2015, and that support is consistently strong across demographics including gender, age, social grade and region.
There is even stronger support for assisted dying for terminally ill people among people who stated they had a disability, while there is broad support for assisted dying across most faith groups, including more than 82 per cent support among Christians.
When asked whether they would feel more or less favourably towards an MP who was supportive of assisted dying, more than half of respondents said they would feel more positively, and only six per cent said they would feel more negatively towards an MP who voted in support of law change on assisted dying.
The news comes just two weeks after the Royal College of Physicians decided to adopt a neutral stance on assisted dying following its own survey of members, and a week after New Jersey became the eighth state in the USA to permit choice at the end of life.
Dignity in Dying’s Chief Executive Sarah Wootton said: “This poll confirms that assisted dying has huge public support in the country, with five out of every six Brits wanting a change in the law.
"In these divided times, there is a cause that unites the vast majority of the country and that is seeking a more compassionate law for dying people. It is crucial that MPs listen to the British people on this subject and ensure that dying people do not have to suffer against their wishes at the end of life.”
