Here's an excerpt from the Times (U.K.) story...
Doctors today decisively rejected the legalisation of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
In a debate at the British Medical Association meeting in Belfast, representatives overturned policy that was only formulated last year, and joined other leading medical bodies in opposing any change in the law.
The vote was clear-cut, with two thirds of the doctors present rejecting both physician-assisted suicide - when doctors provide a lethal draught but do not administer it - and voluntary euathanasia, in which the doctor does the killing
These were taken as separate votes, because some have suggested that are ethical distinctions between them. But both were rejected by almost equal majorities: physician-assisted suicide by 165 to 88, and voluntary euthanasia by 163 to 88.
Non-voluntary euthanasia - where the patient has no choice - was not surprisingly rejected by a much bigger margin, 236 to 16. Calls for the whole issue to be put to a ballot of the entire BMA membership were rejected.
The result was a triumph for Care not Killing, an alliance of church, palliative care and disablement groups set up to counter attempts by Lord Joffe to change the law by introducing the Assisted Dying for the Terminally-Ill bill in the House of Lords. The bill was defeated, and now the alliance can claim credit for helping to reverse last year’s BMA vote.
Dr Peter Saunders, the alliance's campaign director, said that he was delighted at the vote, which had brought the BMA back into line with the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of General Practitioners.
He said he now expected the BMA to campaign actively against any further attempts to change the law...
