Doctors issued a united plea against legalising "mercy killings" for the first time yesterday, before a crucial parliamentary vote that would allow patients to choose when to die.
The Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of General Practitioners abandoned their neutral stance on euthanasia, after an RCP survey that showed three quarters of the profession opposed a change in the law even for a tiny number of terminally ill people. Among palliative care doctors, 95.4 per cent opposed a change in the law.