A NEW bid to make assisted suicide legal in Scotland is being planned by independent MSP Margo MacDonald who claimed she has a mandate to introduce the legislation at Holyrood.
Ms MacDonald spoke out after voters in Switzerland rejected proposals to stop foreigners going there to legally obtain help to kill themselves.
The Lothians MSP, whose End of Life Assistance Bill was defeated in the Scottish Parliament in December, claimed she was elected with a clear intention to change the law.
She said: “Because the Swiss have open minds and big hearts, politicians here are dodging the dilemma posed by the small number of people for whom palliative care and drug therapy do not afford the peaceful death which all of us seek.”
Ms MacDonald said the Swiss-based Dignitas organisation, which helps people wishing to end their life, was not a satisfactory way for Scots to cope.
“That is why I will try again to bring about, this time with a fresh mandate, a change in Scots law to unambiguously allow for a patient to seek and be given medical assistance to end their life before nature decrees,” she said.
Ms MacDonald indicated a change to her approach from her last attempt to introduce the legislation saying she would “simplify” the conditions.
She said: “I will try to ensure that the patient’s needs are paramount from the outset. Last time around I probably attempted to re-assure the Bill’s opponents even though I knew that opposition to the Bill derived from individuals and groups whose objections were, in the main, faith based.
“This time my campaign is likely to focus on the needs and rights of the patient. With more than a third of the MSPs being new, and with this question being one of conscience and individual belief on the part of MSPs it may be that the balance in favour of assisted dying has changed.
“Also I think the campaign will benefit from my being elected with a clearly stated intention of trying to re-introduce a Bill. Last time the Bill was debated near the end of the parliamentary session and some MSPs were wary of supporting it, but my election should reassure doubters that support for this measure does not militate against gaining public support in an election.”
Ms MacDonald failed to secure the necessary support last year, losing by 85-16 in a free vote.
The Bill had been considered by a specially-convened Holyrood committee, which did not support the general principles.
The legislation set out that anyone aged over 16 could request help to die under conditions which specified that the person would have to be diagnosed as terminally ill and find life intolerable.
At the weekend, about 85% of voters in Zurich rejected a call to end legalise assisted suicide while about 78% rejected the call to stop “suicide tourism” by foreigners.
Ms MacDonald said she could not “begin to express my admiration for the Swiss voters in the Zurich canton who voted to continue with the arrangements for non-Swiss nationals to legally obtain assistance to end life that has become intolerable to them”.
A spokesman for the Catholic Church, part of the Care Not Killing alliance, which opposed Ms MacDonald’s Bill, said last night: “The fact that the Scottish Parliament last year rejected the Assisted Suicide Bill was widely accepted as representing the settled will of the Scottish people and it’s difficult to imagine that public opinion could have shifted in such a short period of time. The vote showed Scottish public opinion is not in favour of euthanasia.”
The spokesman pointed out that the Care Not Killing organisation included atheists and humanists as well as people from all faiths and denominations. He added: “The Catholic Church absolutely opposes this on religious beliefs but it is also bad law and bad medicine. Doctors should not kill their patients.”
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