The Scottish Parliament’s Health, Social Care and Sport Committee met on Tuesday to consider further amendments to the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill.
The committee has already dismissed several proposed safeguards, including:
  • Limiting eligibility to those with six months or less to live.
  • Excluding cases driven by intellectual disability or eating disorders
  • Ensuring decisions are not influenced by poverty or inadequate housing.
This week, MSPs on the committee went even further and rejected more protections.
  • They approved an amendment allowing doctors to initiate discussions on assisted suicide, a move that significantly risks undermining trust in the doctor–patient relationship.
  • In an alarming and brazenly dishonest move, MSPs decided that death certificates should list the underlying illness rather than the administration of lethal drugs, as the cause of death in cases of assisted suicide.
Traditionally, patients expect doctors to prioritise care and helping them to live.
Allowing doctors to raise the option of assisted suicide unprompted turns this principle on its head and puts vulnerable people at risk of being coerced into a premature death.
The committee also voted against permitting hospices and care homes to opt out of facilitating assisted suicide, raising concerns about freedom of conscience and the viability of faith-based institutions.
The failure to include an institutional opt-out on the face of the Bill could have devastating consequences for Catholic hospices and care homes, which may lose vital funding or be forced to shut down completely.
Evidence was also presented of cases where lethal drugs failed, leaving patients in prolonged distress—sometimes for days, including in the US state of Oregon where people have been left in pain for up to five and a half days because the lethal drugs have not taken effect.
However, an amendment requiring doctors to explain potential side effects and record complications was also rejected.
Please use Care Not Killing’s convenient online tool to write to your MSPs and update them on these deeply troubling developments. Note that this tool has been updated since Tuesday’s committee session. Click the following link and enter your postcode: https://carenotkilling.scot/