Crossbench peer and disability-rights campaigner Tanni Grey-Thompson said in January that the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) consultation on assisted suicide risks bringing the body into disrepute.
She was responding to the news that the RCP has ended its official opposition to seriously ill patients being given lethal drugs to end their lives (en February). Writing in The Times, Baroness Grey-Thompson criticised the RCP for its announcement that it will adopt a neutral position on assisted suicide unless 60% of respondents say otherwise. Lady Grey-Thompson said the reason for this change was ‘the assisted dying lobby’.
Misleading
‘Only a small minority of members want to see an assisted suicide law. They know there is no chance of the college supporting their project, but neutrality is for them the next best thing because it suggests (misleadingly) that there is a shift in medical opinion.’
