LEGISLATION THAT would give terminally ill or severely disabled patients as young as 16 the right to end their lives is to be put to a free vote of members of the Scottish parliament (MSPs).
Margo MacDonald, an Independent MSP who has Parkinson’s disease, yesterday published a Bill to legalise assisted suicide. She insisted, however, that it would not make Scotland a new international destination for those who want to die.
Under the Bill, people would have to be diagnosed as terminally ill or physically incapacitated to such an extent that they could not live independently. Furthermore, they would have to be prepared to declare that they find life “intolerable”.
They would then have to lodge two formal applications to doctors 15 days apart and to have these applications vetted by psychiatrists. But doctors would be under no legal obligation to take part in the process.
Patients would have to be living in Scotland for 18 months before they would be covered by the End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill – an attempt to avoid the experience of Switzerland, where dozens of foreigners have gone to die.
Ms MacDonald, who has spent 18 months preparing the legislation, said yesterday: “Speaking absolutely personally, if folk could get a dignified death in Scotland, then they are welcome as far as I am concerned.”
Scottish first minister Alex Salmond has already voiced his personal opposition to assisted suicide, but all the parties in the Holyrood parliament have said their MSPs will enjoy a free vote on the issue.
The legislation will now go before a parliamentary committee, which is expected to take public evidence by Easter. It is expected to go before parliament for a first vote in the autumn.
If the Bill is passed, Scotland will become the only place in the UK where it would be legal to help someone to end their life.
Last year, the director of public prosecutions in England published guidelines making it unlikely that a prosecution would be taken against someone who assisted a relative or close friend to die, if that person did not benefit from the death.
Describing the existing law in Scotland as “absolutely abominable”, Ms MacDonald said: “Dying is the last act of your life and if we accept responsibility for how we live our lives then I really fail to see why there is any demarcation between how we should die.”
She said she believed 50 people a year would choose to die using the legislation if it was passed.
“It rests on the principle of accepting the autonomy of anyone to determine how their life ends,” she said.