MSPs must vote against the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill at its final stage

During the Stage 1 debate, several MSPs said they thought the bill should progress through this first stage so that it could be amended to add further safeguards at Stage 2. While some amendments were accepted, many were rejected. The following are examples of proposed amendments which were rejected by the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee:

- Changing the eligibility criteria from ​“an advanced and progressive disease, illness or condition from which they are unable to recover and that can reasonably be expected to cause their premature death” to a prognosis of reasonable expectation of death occurring within a time frame.

- Creating an institutional conscientious objection for service providers such as hospices to opt out of involvement in assisted suicide.

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- Creating a framework for what medical professionals should do if the substance for ending one’s life doesn’t work.

An accepted amendment (Section 18A of the bill) which causes us significant concern is the following:

“(1) No registered medical practitioner is under any duty to raise the subject of the provision of assistance in accordance with this Act with a person.

(2) But nothing in subsection (1) prevents a registered medical practitioner exercising their professional judgement to decide if, and when, it is appropriate to discuss the matter with a person.”

Therefore, should the bill become law with this wording, there is nothing to prevent a medical practitioner from raising the prospect of assisted suicide at any point with someone.

The bill as it currently stands would mean that anyone who has ​“an advanced and progressive disease, illness or condition from which they are unable to recover and that can be reasonably be expected to cause their premature death” is eligible. This could include a very wide group of vulnerable people and inexcusably shift how we as a society think about disability.

Being ill, disabled or vulnerable should never be associated with thinking about ending one’s life. We cannot and will not as Christians accept this.

As is there is no mention of what a medical practitioner should do if the substance does not end a person’s life. The bill only requires a medical practitioner to ​“report any complications, adverse reactions or unintended effects arising from the provision of the approved substance to Public Health Scotland”. This means that legally it will be entirely unclear what a medical practitioner should do in this situation.

The bill is also entirely unclear about how an offence of coercing or pressuring someone into assisted suicide would be evidenced, despite this being a key proposed safeguard of the entire process.

There will be a code of practice prepared by the Scottish Government on the interaction of palliative care with assisted suicide, but this will not matter if someone isn’t able to access palliative care where they live but does have the option of requesting an assisted death.

The law as is also means that someone must only live for a year in Scotland to be eligible.

As of yesterday, we also now know that conscientious objection for medical professionals will have to be added by Westminster after the bill has passed its final stage in the Scottish Parliament. Medical professionals need and deserve this protection.

We are conscious of the responsibility MSPs have when they vote on this bill at Stage 3. As legislators, we urge them to consider the detail of the bill before them and the societal impacts it would have should it become law and to think of the most vulnerable in society.

We can still take action

• When getting in touch with your MSPs about this issue, we would encourage several things:
• Use our Connect resource
• Consider how your MSPs voted at Stage 1. You can find this information here on the Scottish Parliament website.
• Engage in a Christ-like manner, particularly with MSPs who have expressed a different point of view to your own on this issue.

As followers of Jesus, we cannot stand by when a proposed law such as this could have such damaging effects on the most vulnerable in our society. Those who are ill, those who are disabled should be shown unequivocal compassion as our family and friends in living life fully.