A LAW allowing doctors to help terminally ill patients to die came a step closer yesterday when the British Medical Association dropped its opposition.

Doctors voted narrowly to alter the BMA’s stance, opening the way for a renewed campaign to legalise assisted suicide and euthanasia.

The Times understands that MPs and peers would be given a free vote on a Bill that made it clear that doctors would not be expected to administer a fatal dose, but could provide terminally ill patients who are in pain with the means to end their own lives.

The BMA decision was welcomed by Lord Joffe, who plans to reintroduce his Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill after it ran out of time before the general election. Lord Joffe said: “We are preparing a Bill which we hope will become law in time. The BMA’s decision to adopt a neutral stance is an important move because the Government is really thinking carefully about the issue.”

Lord Joffe received a letter this month from Rosie Winterton, the Health Service Minister, suggesting that the Government was prepared to give his Bill time. It declared that the Government’s stance was to “remain neutral” and “to listen to the debate”.

The BMA decision came on a day when doctors voted on another prominent ethical issue — whether the the time limit for abortions should be lowered from 24 weeks to 20. The motion was rejected resoundingly after a debate in which it was said that images of foetuses “walking” in the womb was insufficient scientific evidence to force a change in the law.

Both issues prompted emotionally charged debates at the annual BMA conference in Manchester. Until now, the BMA had strongly opposed euthanasia, fearing that it would undermine public confidence in doctors. Voting to change their present position of opposition to physician-assisted suicide, which was first formulated in the late 1960s, delegates agreed on a neutral stance that would not obstruct new legislation. At the moment assisted suicide carries a 14-year prison sentence.

The motion stated that doctors believed that the question of “the criminal law in relation to assisted dying is primarily a matter for society and for Parliament”, but added that the BMA would press for robust safeguards for patients and doctors who did not wish to be involved in such procedures.

Speaking in support, John Chisholm, a GP on the BMA’s council, said: “We need to ensure that vulnerable patients are protected, that they have quality palliative care and that pain relief is available.” John Garner, a doctor from Lothian, went further, calling for doctors to support an “open and transparent” system that allowed patients to request an assisted death. He said:

“I have no compunction about saying that if I was dying from a terminal illness, and life had become completely joyless and I was in pain, I would want to consider assisted suicide.”

Others expressed concerns that it was not the place of a doctor to be involved in “intentional killing”. At a debate earlier in the week, several doctors spoke of the tragedy of having to watch a patient in appalling pain without being able to help.

After the 53 per cent support for the motion, Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, who had called for the BMA to change its policy, welcomed it as an “historic change”. Dr Harris gave evidence to the Lords Select Committee last year in discussions on Lord Joffe’s Bill. The committee was divided on the issue of legalising physician-assisted suicide but called on Parliament to debate it further.

The committee’s report will be debated in the Lords in October and Lord Joffe will seek to bring his redrafted Bill back after that. Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA’s head of science and ethics, said they wanted to make sure that any future change in the law would include a “conscientious objection clause” for doctors not wanting to become involved in assisted suicides. Dr Nathanson added that whatever happened in the future it was vital that the doctor-patient relationship was not damaged.

The conference also heard from impassioned speakers on lowering the abortion limit. Opposing the motion, Wendy Savage, a doctor from North London and a women’s rights campaigner, said that 4D images of babies in the womb were emotive, but should not cloud the issue. She said: “There is no scientific evidence of a foetus developing more rapidly now than it has for a millennium or two. The focus I think has to be on the woman. Women do not take these decisions lightly.”

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