Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 70(2) May 2020

Stop Press

Very good news on the Royal College of Physicians and Assisted Suicide.

We are delighted to be able to say that on March 26th the RCP put out a further statement on assisted suicide, clarifying that they do not support a change in the law to make it legal.

You may recall that the RCP was subjected to a legal challenge by four Fellows of the RCP (including our President Dr Kearney and Dr Treloar). As a result those fellows were happy to drop their legal challenge to the College.

Dr David Randall, who led the challenge wrote as follows.

Dear All,
I'm pleased to let you know that today the RCP has put out a further statement on assisted suicide, clarifying that they do not support a change in the law to make it legal:
https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/news/rcp-clarifies­its-position-assisted-dying
As a result we are happy to drop our legal challenge to the College. We have made the following statement:
‘We are pleased that the RCP Council have reflected on ways in which the neutral position on assisted dying adopted by the RCP last year has been misrepresented by some outside the College to imply an indifference to the issues raised, or support for a change in the law. We, as individuals, have profound concerns about the safety and impact on society of any change in the law in this regard. We therefore endorse the statement that makes it clear that the RCP does not support such legislation.’
Thanks so much to each of you for your generous support in this. We hope this will be a significant moment in the ongoing struggle against assisted suicide - the struggle to keep medicine about caring for people, and to keep the most vulnerable in our society safe."
Dr David Randall
Especial thanks go to Dr David Randall who led the action and also to Dr Kathy Myers and Dermot Kearney fortheir huge courage and leadership