THE wretched death of Tony Nicklinson brings shame upon our society ("'Goodbye world ...
I had some fun'", The Herald, August 23). The High Court in London refused to grant his request to end his life with medical assistance. As a result of that decision he starved himself to death. Such institutionalised barbarity enacted in our name demeans us all. Sadly there is little prospect of change in the court's position. However, elsewhere in the world matters are not at a standstill.
In June 2012, a significant development took place in Vancouver, when the Supreme Court ruled that the Canadian criminal code, which prohibits physician-assisted death, violated fundamental rights of equality, life and liberty. The wisdom lying behind that judgment is profound. Terminally ill individuals who experience intolerable suffering now have the opportunity to bring that legally and humanely to an end. The court was satisfied that commonly-advanced reasons for denying them relief, including the protection of the vulnerable and damage to the trust patients invest in doctors, could be properly answered, if that was allowed in highly constrained circumstances.
While it is widely recognised that Switzerland permits doctors to practise euthanasia and extends this to foreign nationals with the financial means (about £10,000) to avail themselves of that option, it is less well known that other jurisdictions, including Oregon and Washington in the US and the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg in Europe, also take a more enlightened view of assisted dying than we do.
In 2011 MSPs in Holyrood rejected any change to the law concerning assistance at the end of life. However, in the near future Margo MacDonald will introduce a Bill again seeking to amend the legislation. Hopefully on this occasion our elected representatives will have the vision to alter the law and allow those few brave individuals who wish to take that route the opportunity to legitimately do so in their own country, no matter how deep their pockets might be.
Dying is the way that life ends. Each of us will experience it only once and we all unquestionably wish the process to be a good one. That the birth of every child in Scotland takes place in the best possible circumstances is recognised as a human right. Surely it is appropriate to adopt the same approach when the time to die arrives?
Dr Robert Scott,
Creitendam Lodge,
Balmaha Road, Drymen.
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