THOUSANDS of people have called on Holyrood to permit loved ones to help people suffering from intolerable, incurable illnesses to end their own life.
The My Life, My Death, My Choice campaign will today present a petition signed by 2,500 people urging MSPs to pass the Assisted Suicide Bill, conceived by late independent MSP Margo MacDonald who died in April following a long battle with Parkinson's disease.
Green co-convener Patrick Harvie has pledged to take the Bill forward, with the support of Conservative MSP Jackson Carlaw, Labour MSP Mary Fee and SNP MSP Bill Kidd.
The presentation comes with the deadline for submissions to the Health and Sport Committee consultation on the Bill ending on Friday.
The campaign was launched at the start of the year on the back of a poll which showed that 69 per cent of Scots voters want the Bill to become law.
Since then, campaigners have taken the debate to the four Scottish political party conferences where they claim to have secured wide cross-party and public support for the Bill.
Campaign spokeswoman Shelia Duffy said: "The petition handover demonstrates the level of support there is for the Bill across Scotland. As our campaign has progressed it has become increasingly clear that public support for a change in the law is at an all-time high and this issue is very much something that needs to be looked at closely."
Ms MacDonald failed to get a previous Assisted Suicide Bill through the last parliament, but was re-elected in 2011 on a mandate to resurrect it.
The Free Church has condemned plans to allow healthy 16-year-olds to make assisted suicide pledges. They claim patients suffering from chronic diseases like diabetes and multiple sclerosis "could be pressured into assisted suicide".
Rev Dr Donald MacDonald, a former surgeon who has multiple sclerosis, said the proposals regarding 16-year-olds were "unacceptable".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article