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UK nurses end opposition to assisted dying

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-25 19:43

LONDON: Britain's main nurses' organization has dropped its opposition to assisted suicide, as a new poll released Saturday showed solid support for the right to die.

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The Royal College of Nursing said it was adopting a neutral stance on the issue after its research showed nurses were divided.

Doctors group the British Medical Association remains opposed.

Under British law, assisting a suicide is punishable by up to 14 years in prison, but prosecutions are rare. More than 100 Britons have died in Swiss clinics run by the group Dignitas in the past decade, and none of their friends or relatives has been charged with a crime.

A survey by Populus published Saturday found 74 percent of people wanted the medical profession to be able to supervise assisted suicides, although a large majority, 85 percent, felt it should be legal only in specific circumstances.

The pollster interviewed 1,504 adults by telephone between July 17 and July 19. The margin of error is about plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

The issue of assisted suicide was back in the headlines this month after 85-year-old British composer Edward Downes and his wife Joan, 74, died at a Swiss suicide clinic. He was blind and increasingly deaf, while she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.