Jersey’s proposal for “assisted dying” includes both Assisted Suicide and Voluntary Euthanasia.
In November 2021, Jersey’s States Assembly touted themselves as “the first parliament in the British Isles to decide in principle that assisted dying should be allowed.” They said this as if killing fellow citizens is a thing to be proud of…
[Every box/image can be clicked to link to the original web-page or site with the original document.]
For clarification, Jersey is only geographically located in the British Isles. It is neither part of Britain, nor a British territory.
“The law will set out the eligibility criteria for accessing assisted dying.”
“The Jersey Assisted Dying Service will be delivered by the Health and Community Services Department.”
“There are nine steps in the assisted dying process.”
“The Jersey Care Commission will…provide independent regulation and oversight of the Jersey Assisted Dying Service.”
The Jersey government uses the tacky euphemism ‘assisted dying’ and blatantly lies about it: “Assisted dying is not the same as suicide.”
There are two components to ‘assisted dying’ in the plan for Jersey. One is where the person ingests a poison with the clear and stated intention of killing themselves: a.k.a. Assisted Suicide.
Then, Jersey also plans to legislate the direct administration of a poison by the practitioner with the intent of killing of the patient: “…administered by the Administering Practitioner…or may be injected intravenously” : a.k.a. Euthanasia. (See below. Step 8: main bullet 3#.)
Step 8 showing that Euthanasia would be allowed in the current proposal.
A NON-DEMOCRATIC TWIST
The process for the introduction of Assisted Suicide / Voluntary Euthanasia [AS/VE] into Jersey started with an e-petition in 2018 calling for the States Assembly to amend Jersey law and allow for “assisted dying.” (The States Assembly is their parliament.) Only 1,861 people signed that petition — less than 2% of the 103,267 people resident in Jersey, 2021 census.
Then, the Minister of Heath and Social Services called for a “Citizens Jury.” This citizen committee is meant to be a representative group of residents who discuss a specific question put to them in the hope of providing grass-roots guidance for the government.
There are many possible criticisms of the selection process for the 23 unelected members on this Citizens Jury, but I believe the last selection criterion (below) caused the Jury to be overwhelmingly biased in favour of assisted dying.
The members of the Jury were selected to “broadly represent the Islands population” but they also had to have the “attitude towards assisted dying” in keeping with the British Social Attitudes Survey BSA34 from 2017. There’s the Ringer.
(Noting the final selection criterion: “attitude towards assisted dying” )
BRITISH SOCIAL ATTITUDES: BSA34
In 2017 BSA34 claimed 77% support for Euthanasia. (Those sorts of numbers are hard to come by even when Dignity in Dying pays for a survey taken from paid respondents who are answering biased questions!)
The BSA surveys probably moves public opinion due to the Observer Effect (sometime incorrectly called the Heisenberg Effect.) The premise being that once you examine something like a behaviour, you will change that behaviour simply because of observing it!
It also looks hooky that someone specified BSA34 here. BSA37 was published in October 2020 so would have been the current survey for the Jury, which met early 2021.
(We are now on BSA40.)
BIASED “SORTITION”
So, someone planned the Jury “sortition” to select people with a similar degree of support for Euthanasia as indicated in the British Social Attitudes Survey BSA34. This means that, even before starting, the Jury was ~77% in favour of Euthanasia!!
This conclusion seems to be supported by the Jury’s final report of “78%” support for assisted suicide and euthanasia in the recommendation 3.1 below. (78% mathematically was 18 of the 23 people on the Jury.)
https://www.gov.je/government/pages/statesreports.aspx?reportid=5433
PUBLIC OPINION
IGR research did an “End of Life 2023” survey in Jersey on behalf of DIGNITY IN DYING!!
The ‘result’ from their panel suggested 88% support for ‘assisted dying’: in-line with other surveys paid for by Dignity in Dying!
(Addendum on Nov 20# with regard to remuneration of the IGR panel: “For some of our surveys we offer respondents the opportunity to enter a prize draw - usually to win a £100 shopping or restaurant voucher.” )
The part of the IGR End of Life Survey to focus on, is the indicated line showing the spontaneous responses from the public through social media and those received directly to the IGR website. 55% of those respondents were OPPOSED to assisted dying. I believe this is nearer to the true public sentiment and bet that number would be even higher if the public was properly informed that ‘assisted dying’ includes both Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia.
https://www.islandglobalresearch.com/Client-Reports
Also, 92% of these respondents stated that “It does not matter what the UK does!” That number increased to 96% for those answering by email!! Clearly, Jersey residents reject being categorized by the BSA reports.
Dignity in Dying are old hands at paying for public opinion polls to get a favourable outcome. (Below.)
https://www.catholicarena.com/latest/2022/7/14/more-lies-damned-lies-and-statistics
CONCLUSION
The Jersey government has released the next step in the approval process which was the “Ethical Review.” In practicality, this was just a list of all the reasons For and Against AS/VE — without any true discernment as to which should take precedence.
Sadly, the outcome of the Citizens Jury seems to have been predetermined, before they even got started. This means that the 18 unwitting Jersey residents were (probably) used to push the Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia agenda. If so, there should be moral outrage on the Island at how this process has been railroaded by pro-death advocates.
Political shenanigans in the Bailiwick of Jersey:
It appears that the recommendations from the Citizen’s Jury are tainted by the selection process which used the BSA34 criterion to choose Jersey residents who were in favour of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia.
Kevin Hay
(You can follow Kevin on 𝕏 — formerly Twitter / ‘TwiX’ — @ kevinhay77)