Voluntary Euthanasia Society
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| Founded | December 1935 |
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| Founder | Killick Millard |
| Type | Pro-assisted dying campaigning group |
| Registration no. | 4452809 |
| Location |
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| Website | www |
Dignity in Dying is a United Kingdom nationwide campaigning organisation. It is funded by voluntary contributions from members of the public, and as of December 2010, it claimed to have 25,000 actively subscribing supporters. The organisation declares it is independent of any political, religious or other affiliations, and has the stated primary aim of campaigning for individuals to have greater choice and more control over end-of-life decisions, so as to alleviate any suffering they may be undergoing as they near the end of their life.
Dignity in Dying campaigns for the greater choice, control and access to a full range of medical and palliative services at the end-of-life, including providing terminally ill adults with the option of a painless, assisted death, within strict legal safeguards. It declares that its campaign looks to bring about a generally more compassionate approach to the end-of-life.
Dignity in Dying points out that in the 2010 British Social Attitudes survey 82% of the general public believed that a doctor should probably or definitely be allowed to end the life of a patient with a painful incurable disease at the patient's request. This was further analysed to show 71% of religious people and 92% of non-religious people supported this statement.
Alongside its campaigning work, Dignity in Dying, through its partner charity Compassion in Dying, is also an information source on end-of-life issues and a provider of advance decisions.
In 1931 Dr Charles Killick Millard, the Medical Officer of Health for Leicester from 1901 to 1935, gave the Presidential address at the Annual General Meeting of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. In the address, he advocated the "Legalisation of Voluntary Euthanasia", which prompted considerable debate in Britain involving doctors, clerics and the wider public. Millard's proposal was that in the case of terminal illnesses the law should be changed "to substitute for the slow and painful death a quick and painless one".
The organisation was set up in December 1935 under the name of The Voluntary Euthanasia Legalisation Society (VELS). The initial meeting that set the society up was held at the headquarters of the British Medical Association free of charge, despite the BMA not supporting the aims of the society. During the debate, the meeting was disrupted by 40 members of a Catholic youth association.
The foundation of the society followed an offer of £10,000 from Mr. O. W. Greene, a terminally-ill man in London. The initial offer was retracted and no posthumous endowment was left to the Society after Greene learned that the prospective Society would only be supporting legalisation of euthanasia for those with incurable conditions. The first chairman was C. J. Bond, a consulting surgeon at the Leicester Royal Infirmary; Millard was made the first Honorary Secretary. Other members of the Executive Committee were drawn from Bond and Millard's social milieu in Leicester, including Astley V. Clarke from the Leicester Royal Infirmary; Rev Dr R. F. Rattray, a Unitarian minister and principal of University College, Leicester; Canon F. R. C. Payne of Leicester Cathedral; Rev A. S. Hurn; Frederick Attenborough, also a former principal of University College, Leicester; and H. T. Cooper, the Honorary Solicitor of the Committee.
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