Another ‘impartial’ assisted dying group has just been exposed for being nothing of the sort

This article was updated at 6pm on Wednesday 12 March to include comment from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics

The final report from an assisted dying ‘citizens jury’ committee has been released. It is being touted by the UK’s biggest campaign group in favour of assisted dying as being evidence that Kim Leadbeater’s bill on the issue is needed. However, the citizens jury itself has been found to be heavily biased in favour of the proposed law – showing once again that no one involved in Leadbeater’s bill is impartial.

Assisted Dying Bill: yet another dodgy committee

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCB) has recently found itself at the centre of a contentious debate regarding its citizen’s jury, which has been labelled “deeply flawed” by the Care Not Killing coalition, a prominent organisation opposing euthanasia and advocating for enhanced palliative care services.

The NCB’s citizen’s jury, consisting of 28 members, claims to offer a more nuanced reflection on assisted dying than conventional opinion polls. It was formed in 2024 and has now released its final report.

As assisted dying lobbying group Dignity In Dying wrote:

A final report from England’s first ever citizens’ jury on assisted dying reaffirms the public’s overwhelming support for a compassionate, safeguarded assisted dying law. The new report from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, combining deep insights from the Jury and two nationally representative surveys of 2,000 people, highlights the strength of support for an assisted dying law for terminally ill, mentally competent adults.

This reflects the scope of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill currently being scrutinised in committee stage in the House of Commons, after the principle of the Bill was backed by a majority of MPs at a second reading debate in November. Qualitative analysis of jury members’ deliberations found consistent support for the involvement of a range of professions in the assisted dying process, including medical practitioners, lawyers, social care specialists and psychologists.

However, concerns have swiftly emerged regarding the impartiality and composition of the jury.

Conflicts of interest

Care Not Killing has highlighted significant conflicts of interest; for instance, the NCB’s director previously held a leadership role at Compassion in Dying, the sister organisation of Dignity in Dying. As the Canary previously reported, these tow lobby group are both financially and ethically linked.

Moreover, as the Morning Star wrote:

The director of the NCoB, Danielle Hamm, was formerly the head of Compassion in Dying, a charity that campaigns for assisted suicide and was founded by Dignity in Dying. Seemingly unashamed about the optics of this, the NCoB has now appointed Hamm spokesperson for the project.

One of the NCoB council members is Compassion in Dying’s former chair, while the six-figure grant given to fund the project came from a donor who had previously given money to Humanists UK in support of “legalising assisted dying.”

It also noted that:

To make matters worse, an “expert” group that oversaw the material given to the jury did not include a single member who was opposed to assisted suicide in principle.

Even the jury itself was deliberately set up to include a large majority who already supported legalisation — 17 people known to be in favour of assisted dying were selected for the jury, while only five members previously opposed the practice.

Consequently, Care Not Killing has suggested that the jury is tainted by bias, noting that prior to reviewing evidence, an overwhelming 65% of its members were inclined towards supporting legislative changes on euthanasia.

Gordon MacDonald, CEO of Care Not Killing, expressed ongoing reservations about the jury’s integrity, stating in a now-deleted article on Christian Today that:

Most people would think that this makes a mockery of the term jury.

He asserted that had the NCB assembled a body of unbiased individuals, the conclusions reached would likely differ from those presently articulated by the jury.

Assisted dying: railroaded

A Nuffield Council on Bioethics spokesperson said:

It is the independence and expertise of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics that makes us one of the few organisations in a position to provide policymakers with the impartially gathered and robust evidence they need to better understand what people in England think and feel about assisted dying.

We acted as a broker for this project, appointing an independent Advisory Board to provide impartial, informed advice on the project design, a Content Group to advise on the balance of evidence presented, and we commissioned Hopkins Van Mil to design and facilitate the Citizens’ Jury.

A Citizens’ Jury is a mini-public that is representative of topic attitudes, as well as traditional socio-demographic sampling such as age, gender, ethnicity, educational level and disability status. In February 2024, a nationally representative survey on assisted dying was conducted as part of our project, to ensure that the attitudinal data used for Jury recruitment was up-to-date and impartially gathered.

As is the case with all of our funders, the AB Charitable Trust had no influence in the project process, methodology, outputs, or findings. And in the knowledge that some could perceive our Director’s previous employment as a conflict of interest, Danielle chose to actively recuse herself from the project – delegating all responsibility to our Associate Directors.

The implications of the jury’s findings are concerning for many, particularly within disabled and chronic illness communities.

Polling conducted by Care Not Killing suggests widespread public apprehension regarding the potential for vulnerable individuals to face undue pressure—either from family members or healthcare systems—to opt for premature death.

This issue resonates powerfully against the backdrop of an NHS on its knees and a palliative care system that is not fit for purpose.

However, the NCB citizens jury debacle has once again shown that Leadbeater and her followers are presenting the Assisted Dying Bill in anything but an impartial manner. They are railroading it through parliament while mostly only platforming voices they agree with. That is no basis for such a serious piece of legislation to be debated.

Featured image via the Canary