Bishop Criticises BMJ for Unbalanced Views on Assisted Dying Debate

The British Medical Journal has been criticised for publishing articles in an unbalanced way and seemingly in favour of euthanasia.

|TOP|The Rt Revd Christopher Herbert, Bishop of St Albans, has criticised BMJ for publishing five documents effectively in favour of euthanasia but only one article against it.

“There needs to be a balanced approach to reporting views about assisted dying as the subject assumes greater prominence in the run-up to the House of Lords debate on 10 October,” he said, according to the Church of England press team.

Bishop Herbert leads the Hospital Chaplaincies Council and was formerly a member of the House of Lords select committee. His report also said that the BMJ had not considered that there might be a theological view to include in this debate.

“It is also all too easy for such unbalanced reporting to foster the erroneous impression that there is widespread support among doctors for a change in the law to allow medical assistance with suicide or euthanasia," he said.

|QUOTE|“The great majority of doctors who wrote to the committee were strongly opposed to a change in the law, while the General Medical Council warned that such a change would have serious implications for the doctor-patient relationship and would be difficult to reconcile with medical ethical principles.”

He continued, “Aspects of the debate given prominence by the British Medical Association’s spokeswoman in the Journal suggest that consideration of safeguards and conscience clauses is all that is required now.”

Bishop Herbert said, “This is fundamentally to overlook the fact that the law has not been changed to allow assisted dying and many within and beyond the Church feel strongly that the law as it stands should not be changed. Does the BMA really want to give people the legal right to demand and require death?”