An extreme ‘Citizens’ Jury’ on assisted suicide that found more participants supported the inclusion of child euthanasia than opposed it, was funded by a trust that supports assisted suicide and commissioned by a research body whose director used to head up a pro-assisted suicide pressure group.
Last week, the results of a Citizens’ Jury, organised by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, on assisted suicide were released allegedly showing “broad support for a change in the law in England” on assisted suicide. However, it has since been revealed that the ‘jurors’ appear to have been a highly partisan selection of people who took extreme positions on the issue of assisted suicide and euthanasia that are not widely supported by the public.
More of the members of the ‘jury’ than not appear to have supported ‘assisted dying’ for minors under-18, a majority supported introducing euthanasia as well as assisted suicide and the reasons they gave for legalisation also would justify assisted suicide for the non-terminally ill.
While the Citizens’ Jury represents a small section of the public’s views on this matter, a recent landmark poll found widespread public scepticism about whether assisted suicide could be introduced safely, with more people believing there are too many complicating factors to make it a practical and safe option to implement in Britain than those who believed it could be introduced safely.
Concerns about the impartiality of the Jury
The Citizens’ Jury project was funded by a six-figure grant from the A B Charitable Trust. However, the A B Charitable Trust also previously gave a grant to Humanists UK “towards work on legalising assisted dying”.
The A B Charitable Trust also awarded separate grants to Humanists UK in 2020, 2021 and 2023. Humanists UK are long-time campaigners for legalising assisted suicide.
In the year to 30 April 2023, the A B Charitable Trust donated £165,062 to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCoB). This grant was presumably for the Citizens’ Jury project as there is no evidence of any other grant to the NCoB in this year.
In addition to the funding for the project originating from a body that has previously directly funded lobby efforts to make assisted suicide legal, the director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, Danielle Hamm, was previously director of the assisted suicide supporting group Compassion in Dying. Compassion in Dying are the sister charity of the pro-assisted suicide lobby group Dignity in Dying, and were also founded by them.
Furthermore, the ‘Advisory Board’ for the project was forced to remove one of its members, Berenice Golding, early on in the process after it was revealed that she had publicly expressed views in favour of assisted dying.
This was despite the initial advert for applications for the advisory board stating: “Please note that to be appointed as members of the Advisory Board, candidates must not hold, or be perceived to hold, any public positions or views on assisted dying”. The webpage has now been removed.
It was also despite the fact that, in its advertising for board members, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics promised the Advisory Board would “give impartial, informed advice on the project process and planning, thus maintaining the integrity and rigour of the overall project and helping monitor and minimise bias”.
When Berenice Golding’s pro-assisted suicide tweets were brought to the attention of Nuffield Council on Bioethics, they said: “We are taking prompt action to investigate the matter and review the membership of our Advisory Group, before it holds it first meeting. Independence and impartiality are of importance to our project on assisted dying and we remain committed to ensuring this throughout the course of our public engagement project”. Berenice Golding was subsequently removed and not replaced.
In addition to problems with bias among their advisory board, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics appointed four experts to ensure that information given to the Citizens’ Jury would be “balanced” and “accurate”. However, this group did not contain a single member who is opposed to assisted suicide/euthanasia in principle.
One of the experts, Claud Regnard runs ‘Keep Assisted Dying Out of Healthcare’ (KADOH), which campaigns for assisted suicide to be kept out of healthcare, but does not oppose the practice in principle.
Another expert, Trudo Lemmens, supported the legalisation of assisted suicide and euthanasia in Canada and, according to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, is now “opposed to legalising the practice outside a clearly delineated end-of-life context”.
While these two experts may be considered sceptical of the assisted suicide/euthanasia, the biographies of the four members of this group on the project website are clear that none of the experts are opposed in principle to assisted suicide. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics should have included members who are opposed to assisted suicide in principle, especially since it claims to “represent[] a broad range of views on assisted dying”. This raises questions about whether all sides of the debate were given adequate consideration.
The name of the project is itself a source of controversy since the term ‘assisted dying’ is used by supporters of assisted suicide/euthanasia but typically not by those opposed to the practice, bringing into question the project’s claim to neutrality.
Parliament’s Health and Social Care Select Committee recently held a year-long inquiry into the subject, which deliberately used the terms ‘Assisted dying/assisted suicide‘ to avoid bias. Polling from New Zealand suggests that use of the term “assisted dying” can cause confusion and exaggerates support for the practice in opinion polls. A 2021 Survation poll conducted on behalf of the ‘Dying Well’ All-Party Parliamentary Group found that 42% of the public mistakenly think “assisted dying” refers to “giving people who are dying the right to stop life-prolonging treatment”, rather than intentionally and proactively intervening to end life with lethal drugs.
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ survey of the Citizens’ Jury members also asked questions in a way that favoured support for ‘assisted dying’ e.g. asking the jury whether it should be permitted rather than whether they supported the current law.
The Citizens’ Jury findings
Despite the claims of Anne Kerr, Chair of the project’s Advisory Board, that “[t]he Jury findings indicate broad support for a change in the law in England”, the Jury’s views in fact indicated support for extreme measures that go well beyond current proposals for law change.
In its findings, the Jury appeared to support changes in the law that go far beyond what is being publicly advocated by leading assisted suicide pressure group ‘Dignity in Dying’ and advocate Lord Falconer.
The Jury supported not only physician-assisted suicide (where the person is assisted to end their own life but completes the process themselves) but also the practice of euthanasia (where the physician ends the life of the person), going well beyond what is currently being considered in the UK Parliament.
The jury not only supported euthanasia in general, but also passed 10 votes in favour of ‘assisted dying’ for children under 18 but only 6 votes were cast against. This is a strong indicator of the extreme positions held by many members of the Jury, as ‘child euthanasia’ is not even permitted in Canada, which has some of the most liberal assisted suicide and euthanasia laws in the world.
Among the main reasons why the Jury supported assisted suicide/euthanasia included “having the option to end your own life” and “stopping pain”. Both of these justifications would open the door for assisted suicide beyond terminal illness, as happened in Canada where assisted suicide was legalised in 2016 for those for whom death was “reasonably foreseeable” and expanded in 2021 to include those with a “serious and incurable illness, disease or disability” who are enduring “intolerable physical or psychological suffering that cannot be alleviated under conditions the person considers acceptable”.
The Jury also supported making euthanasia “equal and accessible for those who want it”. Such arguments have been used to widen eligibility criteria for assisted suicide/euthanasia on the grounds that permitting it for some (e.g. the terminally ill with six or fewer months to live) discriminates against others.
It is noteworthy that only 16 of the 28 members of the Jury “strongly agreed” with legalisation. This means that over 4 in 10 participants were not strongly in favour.
This corresponds to a recent Telegraph landmark poll that found that while a majority of people support ‘assisted dying’ in principle, more than half of those who expressed a view believed there were too many complicating factors to make it a practical and safe option to implement in Britain.
Citizens’ Juries self-selective
Citizens’ Juries are by their nature ‘self-selective’. Even where people are invited to become a member of the jury in a random or representative way, those who accept the invitation are more likely to be passionate about the issue. Those who favour a law change rather than the status quo tend to be more passionate and therefore more likely to agree to be on such a jury.
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics Citizens’ Jury required members to meet for seven sessions over a total of 24 hours across a period of three months. This was a significant commitment that means those with strong prior views on the subject were more likely to agree to be participants.
Irish referendums indicate the weakness of using Citizens’ Juries
The recent Irish constitutional referendums in March 2024 highlight the weakness of using Citizens’ Juries as a gauge of wider public opinion. Proposals that had been recommended by Citizens’ Assemblies were overwhelmingly rejected by the Irish public.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “The Nuffield Citizens’ Jury project was flawed from the outset. It was inconceivable that a project funded by a charity that has made grants in support of legalising assisted suicide and commissioned by a charity whose Director used to be the head of a leading pro-assisted suicide pressure group could reach conclusions that the public could confidently trust to be impartial and balanced. This particular Jury appears to have favoured extreme measures that would go far beyond what pro-assisted suicide campaigners in the UK claim to support such as the legalisation of euthanasia; jury members also expressed greater support for than opposition to the introduction of assisted dying for minors”.
“As we witnessed earlier this year when the recommendations of a Citizens’ Jury were rejected by voters in the Irish referendums, Citizens’ Juries do not always represent the views of the public as a whole. Our laws are made in the UK Parliament, which has consistently rejected the introduction of assisted suicide that has put vulnerable people at risk in countries where it has been legalised. Parliament ought instead to focus on improving access to high-quality palliative care”.
