At the heart of a democracy is the idea that the public is capable of making reflective judgments on issues of concern. Yet in a parliamentary system, there are few opportunities for practising a politics of deliberation. Voters elect MPs to do that for them. With many of the recent social reforms – legalising same-sex marriages or introducing no-fault divorce – public opinion has run ahead of political action.
This situation is mirrored with assisted dying. Polls suggest 75% of the public back changing the law to let someone with a terminal condition have an assisted death. The question is whether once voters had been given a chance to learn about the issue in more depth they might take a different view. Recent evidence suggests they would not. When the Nuffield Council assembled a citizens’ jury in England to look at the issue, in an eight-week long deliberative process, 70% of participants supported a change in the law for terminally ill, mentally competent people.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/13/the-guardian-view-on-assisted-dying-mps-ought-to-consider-the-issue?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger
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