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Public supports euthanasia for most desperate cases

But the survey, carried out by Social and Community Planning Research, highlights the fact that people's responses vary according to the individual circumstances of the case. Complex judgments tend to be made about a patient's chance of recovery, pain levels, and quality of life. Very few people, for example, agreed with euthanasia if the person is simply lonely and tired of life.

The survey was based on interviews with 3500 people in England, Scotland, and Wales. When the question "Should doctors be permitted to end a life when someone requests it?" was asked, 82% said yes and 15% said no. When the same question was asked 10 years earlier 75% had said yes and 24% no. The researchers then presented seven scenarios where decisions about euthanasia might be made:

* A patient has an incurable illness and is too ill to make a life or death decision (for example, in a coma on a life support machine with no hope of regaining consciousness). The relatives agreed to euthanasia--percentage of respondents agreeing that euthanasia would be justified 86%

* The patient has an incurable and painful illness and is bound to die (for example, dying of cancer)--80%

* The patient is in a coma, not expected to regain consciousness but is not on a life support machine--58%

* The patient is not in pain or in danger of death but becomes permanently and completely dependent on relatives--51%

* The patient has an incurable illness from which he or she will die but which is not very painful (for example, leukaemia)--44%

* The patient has an incurable, painful, but not fatal, illness (for example) severe arthritis--42%

* Someone is not ill or close to death but is simply tired of life and wishes to die (for example, extremely lonely)--12%.

The survey says that the issue has become more prominent because more people are living into old age; there is greater geographical mobility, so fewer relatives are likely to live close by and family size is declining.

Greater numbers of people now assume that the burden of care in such cases belongs to the state not to them. Young people are more likely to approve of euthanasia than old people, mainly because fewer younger people are church goers. Religious beliefs and ethic background are much more powerful determinants of attitudes than age.

There are also regional variations with people from Scotland less accepting of euthanasia than those in England and Wales. Younger, but not older, disabled people are also more likely to endorse euthanasia.--JACQUI WISE, BMJ

View larger version (61K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Professor van der Maas said that discussions about euthanasia now started earlier

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