Bill Launched To Legalise Assisted Suicide In Scotland

Margo MacDonald launches Bill to legalise assisted suicide, Scotland, Jan. 12, 2010.

The Bill would make Scotland the first part of Britain to change the law, which currently leaves Scots open to prosecution for culpable homicide.

The End of Life Choices Bill, if supported by MSPs, will allow anyone aged over 16 to request help to die.

It stipulates that the person must be diagnosed as terminally ill or permanently physically incapacitated, and finds life intolerable.

The person must have been registered with a GP in Scotland for at least 18 months.

Ms MacDonald, an independent MSP for the Lothians, said: "It's absolutely appalling that people should have to leave their homes and their families and friends and everything that's familiar to them, and end their life in a foreign country in what has to be a relatively clinical atmosphere.

"Dying is part of living, it's the last act of your life, and if we accept the responsibility of how we live our lives, then I really fail to see where there is any demarcation of how we should die."

Ms MacDonald drew attention to her arms, which were visibly shaking as she launched the Bill in the Scottish Parliament.

She insisted that her attempt to change the law was not personal, adding: "There are many other people who have progressive, degenerative conditions that are much more vicious than mine.

"And they only have to look forward to a very, very, unhappy, unpleasant, undignified end of life experience.

"This Bill is meant to try and redress that unfairness, to give those people the autonomy to exercise some control over how they die, to give them the legal right to seek assistance and to protect the people that give assistance."

Ms MacDonald has already said she would like to be allowed to bring about her own death if her condition deteriorated.

MSPs and Scottish Government ministers will be allowed a free vote on the Bill when it reaches its conclusion.

First Minister Alex Salmond has previously said he is "not convinced" about the proposal.

Critics of the Bill include the Care Not Killing association, which urged MSPs to proceed with "extreme care and caution" when considering the Bill.

Dr Gordon Macdonald, from the group, said: "Are we seriously to contemplate unleashing onto the public a law that would license relatives or friends to assist in the killing of people with terminal or degenerative illnesses or disabilities?"

Agnes Stevenson, 67, from Prestonpans in East Lothian, was at today's launch to offer her support for the Bill.

She has twice fought breast cancer but said she would rather end her life than undergo further medical treatment for the disease.

Ms Stevenson said she had researched how to use the Dignitas service in Switzerland, which helps people to die.

She added: "I love Scotland and I don't understand why I have to leave my country to die. Even trying to get your ashes back is a nightmare. I'd probably be buried in Switzerland."

Mrs Stevenson called on MSPs to "listen to the people" but conceded that she thought the Bill will fall.

"The religious lobby is too strong," she added. Sheila Duffy, of pressure group Friends at the End, drew comparisons with previous attempts to change abortion law.

She said: "We forget that now, we take that as a matter of course, and one day we will take assisted suicide as a matter of course with the safeguards in the Bill.

"It's maybe not a perfect Bill but we see it as a start, reflecting what society wants."

In The Scotsman