As a retired GP in his 80s (and therefore aware that assisted dying may be a practical and personal issue in the not too distant future) I greatly welcome Clare Gerada’s personal plea for strong general practice support for the case for neutrality.1 For many years I was a practice colleague of Ann McPherson. In spite of her personal suffering for several years from breast and then pancreatic cancer she found the energy to campaign on behalf of patients on many issues, finally, assisted dying. As her daughter Tess and husband Klim have said, her own pleas for personal assistance near the end were frustrated by the continuing failure to tackle this issue.
As a young GP in the 1960s, I remember the misery experienced by some young patients caused by resistance in the medical profession to abortion reform. As Clare Gerada says, this story is being repeated in relation to assisted dying.
- © British Journal of General Practice 2013
