New poll shows 'no public consent' for UK assisted suicide bill

A new poll reveals the public does not support the UK euthanasia bill that failed to pass Friday.The poll, conducted by JL partners in April, asked 1,635 UK respondents about its assisted suicide bill — the results showed 66% of people who supported assisted suicide still wanted to see safeguards put in place for terminally ill people.As James Johnson, the co-founder of JL partners, wrote in the Telegraph, 72% of people polled said it was important to strictly define eligibility for euthanasia before moving forward. By large margins, respondents believed certain groups of people should be exempt from assisted suicide, including pregnant women (82%), those with eating disorders (74%), people with mental illness (74%), people who are suicidal (74%), and homeless people (72%). .About 78% of people said they would want people thinking of getting euthanasia for their terminal illness to at least be offered palliative care or hospice before proceeding.Also, 79% said they'd want the deaths to be supervised directly by a qualified physician, with 59% claiming the bill should require informing family members.Only 10% of people said they would still support legalizing euthanasia if there weren't enough safeguards attached to it.Johnson states this is a stark difference from his firm's UK assisted dying polling results from 2021, where they had found significant support for the euthanasia bill at 72% of those polled."In the context of policies I’ve tested over the years, that is a very significant margin – and it is even larger amongst Conservative voters," Johnson pointed out. .He also said most people in 2021 supported the proposed bill and its guardrails, with most seeing it as a matter of "personal choice."Johnson concludes from the 2026 data that there is "no public consent for its passage" of the bill as it stands.He blames the "shape of the policy" for voters not wanting it to pass.Interestingly, Johnson points out that although 80% of people polled claimed they knew what the assisted suicide bill was, only 38% correctly described its content..This led Johnson to hypothesize many people releasing polls of the UK public's support of the bill are supporting assisted suicide as a principle, not the details written in the bill. The bill was originally introduced in October 2024 by UK Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.

New poll shows 'no public consent' for UK assisted suicide bill

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