Expert academic attacks false claims of assisted suicide campaigners

The UK's leading assisted suicide group made inaccurate claims about suicide rates to aid its campaign, a leading academic has said.

Dignity in Dying, which wants vulnerable people with a terminal illness to get help to commit suicide, was criticised by Katherine Sleeman, a palliative care expert and clinical scientist.

Last week, the group claimed new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show people who are dying are more likely to commit suicide than others in the general population.

However, Professor Sleeman said the group was misrepresenting the data. Taking to Twitter, she noted that the people "in ONS analysis of suicide risk were not ‘dying’ [contrary] to what [Dignity in Dying] said".

Describing claims by the group as a "ridiculous contortion", she added: "We have no idea if those we’d consider ‘dying’ had a higher risk of suicide from this data. And yet you stress ‘dying’ in your comms/press campaign...we should *reflect on the data*. Not spin it".

A spokesperson for CARE commented:

"This is yet more evidence of the disingenuous tactics used by assisted suicide campaigners. We already know they use euphemistic and misleading language to describe what they want to legalise, and gloss over serious problems with the practice.

"We hope the public and politicians alike will see that they cannot trust the pronouncements of Dignity in Dying. They must instead consider the clear, dispassionate evidence about assisted suicide, which clearly shows it is a dangerous and unworkable idea."