Religious Support For Assisted Dying
Inter-faith leaders for Dignity in Dying (IFDiD) are an Inter-faith group of clergy who support the aims of Dignity in Dying. They call for a change in the law that would allow terminally ill, mentally competent adults the choice of an assisted death.
The alliance was established in November 2012 by Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain and now numbers 50 interfaith leaders from different denominations.
The Religious general public support assisted dying
Findings from two recent large-scale YouGov polls and the 2010 British Social Attitudes survey (BSA) tell us that there are many who are both committed worshippers and believe strongly that assisted dying should be available as a choice for terminally ill people.
A YouGov survey commissioned by IFDiD found that 62% of people who identified as belonging to a religion supported the legalisation of assisted dying for terminally ill adults with mental capacity , whether they would want the choice for themselves or not. Only 18% were opposed.
78% of those who attended a place of worship once a month supported assisted dying. 59% of those who attended several times a month support assisted dying; this then slightly falls to half of those who attend once a week.
The BSA survey found that 71% of religious people agreed that a doctor should probably or definitely be allowed to end the life of a patient with a painful, incurable disease at the patient’s request.