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Call for views on new bid to legalise assisted suicide

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date23 September 2021
Publication titleExpress, The/The Express on Sunday
A public consultation on the proposals is being launched today, ahead of a third vote on the controversial issue at Holyrood next year.

If passed, the law would allow people with a terminal diagnosis to access medication to take their own lives.They would have to have lived in Scotland for at least a year and two doctors would have to be satisfied they have met safeguards, including mental competence.

Scotland would become the first country in the UK, and one of only a few in Europe, to legalise assisted dying. The Assisted Dying Scotland Bill was put forward by Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur in June.

He said: "In my time as an MSP I have heard from many families whose suffering has been exacerbated by the current blanket ban on assisted dying. I have watched other countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, put new laws in place to ensure their citizens can have a peaceful and dignified death and I believe that the time is right for Scotland to look again at providing our dying people with more choice at the end of life."

Ally Thomson, director of the Dignity in Dying Scotland campaign, said: "The overwhelming majority of people in Scotland support a change in the law and now Scots can have their say on the vitally important issue of how we die."

Opponents of the idea include the Catholic Church in Scotland, as well as Better Way, a coalition of academics, disability activists and medical experts, and the charity Care for Scotland.

Anthony Horan, director of the Catholic Parliamentary Office, called on MSPs to "prevent suicide, not assist it".

"This is the third time in little over a decade that the Scottish Parliament has been asked to legalise assisted suicide," he said.

"Despite the underlying arguments not having changed we are once again being confronted with the frightening proposal that doctors be legally permitted to help patients kill themselves by providing them with a lethal cocktail of drugs.

"Over the last 18 months society has been reoriented to protect the most ill and vulnerable in response to...

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