70% favour 'natural, pain-free' death over assisted dying, poll indicates
40% were unable to correctly define the term 'assisted dying'
Seventy per cent of Maltese residents say they would rather end their life naturally than by taking doctor-administered drugs, but 40% said they are unable to correctly identify what assisted dying means, a survey has indicated.
Misco pollsters surveyed 500 respondents between June 10 and 19.
Malta is currently debating the introduction of voluntary assisted euthanasia, with a public consultation under way based on government proposals that would allow terminally ill patients who are given less than six months to live the opportunity to end their life.
Survey respondents were first asked to what they understood by the term “assisted dying” and were given four options: ‘providing hospice-type care to people who are dying’; ‘giving people who are dying the right to stop life-prolonging treatment; ‘providing people who have less than six months to live with lethal drugs to end their life’; or ‘don’t know’.
Just 60 per cent correctly defined the term.
Respondents were then asked if they would consider prematurely ending their life if they were sick or felt like they were a burden on their family.
Forty-seven per cent said they would consider it, 35% said they would not, and 18% said they did not know.
In a third question, respondents were asked “given the option, which would you choose?” and given three options: “treatment that ensures you are able to die naturally in a pain-free manner”; “a doctor giving you drugs to end your life before its natural end”; or “neither of them”.
When responding, 70 per cent indicated they would choose palliative care treatments that provided them with a pain-free death.
In a final question, respondents were asked if they had experienced a death in their family or social circles that involved significant suffering in the previous 12 months.
A press release about the survey reported that more than two-thirds of respondents who said they had experienced such a death favoured palliative care over doctor-assisted dying.