Liam McArthur’s Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill today passed Stage One by 70-56 after an five-hour debate with notable contributions from Pam Duncan-Glancy, Murdo Fraser and Stephen Kerr. A number of yes voters made it clear that they were doing so to further debate, and to see if areas of concern could be remedied at later stages. The vote comes despite the release of new polling which found that:
“Two thirds of Scots oppose assisted suicide when they consider how it operates in practice and think about the arguments against it. The survey indicates that young people aged 18 to 24 are more opposed than any other age group to the legislation.”
Dr Gordon Macdonald, Chief Executive of Care Not Killing, commented:
“In an ideal world, MSPs would have rejected this dangerous and ideological bill today, however we are greatly encouraged by the closeness of the vote, which no one predicted when the legislative process started over 12 months ago. The simple explanation is the more MSPs hear what legalising assisted dying would mean – rewriting the NHS charter, fundamentally changing the nature of health care in Scotland and how it would put pressure on the terminally ill, vulnerable and disabled people to end their lives prematurely, the less inclined they are to back it.”
He continued:
“The McArthur Bill, just like the Leadbeater south of the border is modelled on the US state of Oregon, where a majority of those ending their lives consistently cite fear of being a burden on their families, carers or finances as a reason. Here we have also seen how a law sold to the public as being for terminally ill mentally competent adults has been expanded to include those eating disorders such as anorexia and even insulin dependent diabetes.
“There are other problems too. Legalising Physician Assisted Suicide also seems to normalise suicide in the general populations. Indeed, academics who looked at this emerging trend concluded that legalising assisted suicide was associated with an increase of 6.3 per cent in the numbers of suicides in Oregon, once all other factors had been controlled. Among over 65s the figure was more than double that.
“At the same time testimony from Professor Joel Zivot, casts doubt on the myth being put forward by those who want a change in the law that patients opting for the lethal cocktail of drugs die a quick and painless death. Evidence from Tennessee which uses the same drugs to kill people on death row as the ones used in Oregon and are likely to be used in Scotland and other parts of the UK, suggest the inmates die from drowning in their own secretions or what doctors call a pulmonary oedema. As we know from data published by health authorities in Oregon, the process of dying can take hours even days. Both the McArthur Bill and Leadbeater Bill are silent on what the role of doctors should be when confronted with a person slowly dying in agony after ingesting the poison. No wonder so few doctors are willing to participate in state assisted suicide.”
Dr Macdonald concluded:
“As in the rest of the UK, Scotland’s palliative care system is massively under resourced and stretched to breaking point. Yet we are not debating how to fix it. The scandal here is there are more elected politicians in Holyrood than palliative care doctors in Scotland and one in four people who would benefit from this type of care aren’t receiving it. This is what we should be talking about and finding how we can ensure whether you live in Peebles, Glasgow, Fort William or Findochty you have access to the very best care. In short, we need more care not killing.”
