Breaking ranks with the medical establishment, it has issued an outspoken editorial backing a bill tabled by the former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer which would open the way for a form of assisted suicide in the UK. It argues that “respect for autonomy” – rather than the ideas of the Hippocratic Oath – is now the “cardinal principle” in medical ethics amid a “patient revolution” The journal accuses professional bodies – including its owner, the British Medical Association – and the royal colleges, which oppose relaxing the euthanasia laws, of going to “extraordinary contortions” to avoid consulting their members on the issue. “Ultimately, however, this is ultimately “a matter for Parliament, not doctors to decide,” it remarks.
(John Bingham in The Telegraph)