I'm with A.C Grayling in the argument over physician-assisted suicide. He doesn't deny that there are some dangers, but looks to the necessity of meeting these as far as we can:
Alas, abuse is possible in all walks of life, but a carefully drafted law, such as the one Lord Joffe introduced in the House of Lords, would provide careful protections and checks, while allowing those in unbearable distress the sanctuary of an easeful end to suffering.
One thing that interests me in this discussion is the role played by references to majority opinion. Grayling tells us both that 'a majority of the medical profession do not approve of legalising voluntary euthanasia' and that 'polling shows... that more than 80 per cent of the public want physician-assisted suicide to be available to them as an option if they should find themselves in circumstances where their lives have become unbearable without hope of remedy'. As to the latter of these facts, it should surely carry no decisive argumentative weight with him. Except when the question is that of which political party (candidate etc) a majority of voters wants to be elected, favourable majority opinion doesn't dictate what one judges to be right. I presume that Grayling wouldn't recommend the reintroduction of capital punishment on such grounds. For that reason, too, the majority opinion within the medical profession is evidently not decisive for him.
It is also of interest to me why the majority view within the medical profession is as it is. Is it because of a reluctance to be openly involved in the taking of life, even in the pain-relieving circumstances under discussion here? Grayling says that 'practitioners already help patients to die but would prefer the grey area of unspoken discretion to remain'. Does the majority medical view turn mostly on a reluctance to publicly acknowledge that there is assisted dying going on or on the substantive point of not wanting to legitimize it at all?