'The committee needs to consider whether, as a society, we want to send out the message that some people's lives are not worth living because of the quality of life that they perceive themselves to have', CNK Scotland's Gordon Macdonald tells MSPs
'It gives far too much power and not nearly enough accountability to doctors who are not really in a position to make the judgment that the bill requires', CNK's Campaign Director tells MSPs
Members of the House of Keys, the lower house of the Tynwald (the Manx Parliament), this week declined by 17 votes to 5 to allow a bill for assisted suicide.
The contributions of Baroness Campbell to the Falconer Bill's second day of committee consideration once again drew the greatest attention. Read her two key speeches, advocating for the rights of disabled people
Baroness Finlay led debate on the difficulty of assessing terminally ill patients and determining a prognosis - an issue critical to the viability of Lord Falconer's bill which was receiving its second day of committee consideration
Lord Carlile's amendment to require a pre-existing doctor-patient relationship on the Falconer Bill's second day of committee consideration sparked key points of debate
The term 'assisted dying' has long been controversial, but supporters of Lord Falconer proved utterly unwilling to accept the simplest demands of the English language on his bill's second day in committee when Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve proposed an alternative phrase: assisted suicide
For nine years a member of a Dutch Regional Review Committee, Prof Theo Boer's experience of legalised euthanasia and assisted suicide saw him go from being a supporter of such legislation to concluding: 'we were wrong - terribly wrong, in fact'.
