CARE: Assisted suicide would change Scottish society for the worse

Legalising assisted suicide would change Scottish society for the worse, CARE for Scotland has warned, as a consultation on Holyrood proposals closes.

A call for views on Liam McArthur MSP’s Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill closed last night. The Bill would allow adults deemed to have a terminal illness to access lethal drugs to end their lives.

Our official response to the plans warns that assisted suicide would undermine suicide prevention:

“Introducing assisted suicide would integrate into our culture the belief that certain lives, far from being worthy of protection, merit the active intervention of doctors for the purpose of securing their demise. This is deeply problematic. ‘Assisted dying’ of the sort proposed would send a confusing and regressive signal that certain lives are no longer worth living, which would also undermine society’s wider anti-suicide message.”

We caution that existing inequality in healthcare will see people feeling obliged to opt for an 'assisted death' when they would rather live:

“The Chairman of the Royal College of GPs has warned that years of underinvestment in GP services means that providing safe and personalised care for patients is ‘becoming increasingly undoable’. Patients are waiting a long time to receive care and may feel desperate about their situation.”

“There is a huge risk that this lack of choice of palliative care combined with the provision of a state sanctioned/state regulated assisted suicide will result in some terminally ill patients reluctantly opting for an assisted death when they would have preferred to live their life to completion with appropriate symptom relief.”

We stress that “safeguards” are not fit for purpose:

“Even a cursory examination of the small number of jurisdictions where a form of assisted dying has been legalised shows that criteria are widened, and safeguards simultaneously eroded, over time. Once a practice is legalised, it soon becomes normalised, and it would be a matter of time before restrictions would be progressively removed”.

We warn that "pressure" will be placed on people to end their lives:

“The proposed Bill would send a negative message to those with a terminal illness, and arguably to people with other illness or disabilities, that certain lives are no longer worth living. Assisted suicide, by definition, sends a clear signal that certain lives are no longer worth living. It is also individuals in these categories who are most likely to feel pressurised into considering assisted dying. In the absence of the Bill, such pressure would not exist.

And we urge that the proposals be withdrawn:

“CARE for Scotland understands that the motivation for some of the proposers is to minimise pain and suffering at time of death. Enhanced dignity near to death is extremely important but is not to be found in the authorised termination of a life. Hard cases inevitably make bad laws.

"We would sincerely plead the proposers to consider again the pressure which these measures would place upon some of the most vulnerable people in Scotland; to withdraw these proposals, and to refocus precious parliamentary time and resource on better palliative care.”

Commenting on the consultation this morning, Liam McArthur MSP said it had recieved an "unprecedented" response from the public.

A spokesman for CARE said:

"This legislation is hugely divisive as the level of response to the consultation demonstrates. We are thankful to all our supporters who took the time to respond. These proposals are unsafe, unethical, and unnecessary. We hope that parliament will do the right thing and reject them."