Professor Ben White:

I will briefly address the comment about wider societal impacts. These are really significant claims and they are factual, that is, claims about what is and is not so. It is an area in which following the evidence becomes really important. Claims that legalising assisted dying will lead to a duty to die and fundamentally change society and similar claims are very significant and factual. I know that Professor Preston confined her comments to conversations with healthcare professionals and families and was not suggesting that there was wider societal evidence. I am not aware of any such evidence either. As far as that point is concerned, I do not believe there is evidence to support those claims. I believe they rest in the category of anecdote, opinion and belief without evidence to support them.