A public consultation on a new Assisted Suicide Scotland Bill is expected to be launched on Thursday 23 September, according to reports in the press over the weekend.

The draft text of the Bill has not yet been published but it is expected that the Bill will be similar to previous attempts to legalise assisted suicide in Scotland.

If this is the case, the Bill will aim to legalise some form of assisted suicide for terminally ill adults who have 6 months or less to live.

In 2015, MSPs rejected an Assisted Suicide Bill by 82-36 and a Bill was also voted down in 2010.

CARE for Scotland has campaigned for better palliative care in the past, while also opposing assisted suicide bills because of huge concerns about the pressure that would fall on some of the most vulnerable in society.

Meanwhile Members of the House of Lords will soon debate Baroness Meacher's Assisted Dying Bill at Westminster, which aims to change the law in England and Wales to allow terminally ill adults, with six months or less to live, the option of an assisted suicide.

You can find out more about that Bill and CARE's concerns in this free briefing. For a more in depth analysis of what's wrong with the Bill, you can read this long-read by Professor John Wyatt.