The main problem, from what I can tell, is not that "the powers that be" oppose it. It's that they realise the members of the public who oppose it do so extremely strongly, to the point where attempting to implement it would be political suicide.
Many politicians, MoH officials etc are probably strongly in favour. It's just that to come out and say so would invite so much 'controversy', media, hate mail, etc that doing it isn't worth their jobs. The issues with democracy.....
In a democracy where much of the population are apathetic the strong views of the minority will always hold excessive sway. Nothing to do with power, money etc - it's just the extent to which they are vocal. That combined with the fact that it's easier to report on strong opinions than on apathy creates a distorted appearance of strong opposition.
(Sidenote - looks like physician support varies wildly by country. Surveys seem to indicate support is stronger than opposition in the UK and America, some countries in Europe have much stronger support, and many asian countries are more heavily opposed.)
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