Assisted suicide has never attracted the support of a majority of doctors in Britain, but a survey by the BMA, which represents more than 150,000 doctors and 19,000 medical students, suggested that opinions may be shifting. A fifth of eligible members – 29,007 - took part in the survey, so the result is inconclusive. Of those who did take part, 59 per cent of those responding said they support changing the law to allow terminally ill and incurably suffering adults the option of a legal assisted death. 39 per cent took the opposite view. 40 per cent said the BMA itself should actively support such a change in the law, with just 33 per cent opposed, and 21 per cent neutral. More than 10,000 doctors indicated they would be willing to participate actively in assisting suicide if the law were changed. (Read the BMA’s full results.) The BMA may now decide to review its stance on assisted dying at its next policy-making meeting in September 2021.The survey results are not isolated; yesterday the Irish Dail voted to move forward on proposals to legalise assisted dying, and a national referendum on assisted dying is scheduled to take place in New Zealand later this month. Members were asked whether they believe the BMA should actively support, actively oppose, or neither actively support nor actively oppose (i.e. take a neutral stance on) a change in the law to permit doctors to prescribe drugs for eligible patients to self-administer to end their own life. ‘Four in ten (40 per cent) surveyed members expressed the view that the British Medical Association (BMA) should actively support attempts to change the law, one in three (33%) favoured opposition, and one in five (21%) felt the BMA should adopt a neutral position, neither actively supporting nor actively opposing attempts to change the law to permit doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs.’ This means a majority opted for an end to the current policy of opposition, and a move to at least neutrality, on a position that would match the law in Switzerland. Further, ‘Half, or fifty per cent, of surveyed members personally believed that there should be a change in the law to permit doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs. Four in ten, 39 per cent, were opposed, a further one in ten, 11 per cent, undecided.’ Care Not Killing, an association of pro-life organisations opposed to assisted dying, issued the following statement from its chief executive, Dr Gordon Macdonald: