BMA votes to poll members on its assisted dying stance

The BMA has voted to poll its members to ascertain their views on whether the association should adopt a neutral position on assisted dying rather than one against.

After a lively debate, representatives passed this part of the motion by 149 votes to 115, at their annual meeting in Belfast on 25 June.

The association’s current policy,1 reaffirmed at the 2016 annual meeting, is to oppose legalised physician assisted suicide for terminally ill people.

Jacky Davis, a consultant radiologist, proposing the 2019 motion on behalf of the Islington division, said that even if everyone had access to the best hospice care at least 5000 people a year would die suffering in unrelieved pain.

Davis, who works …