SPUC has warned that the legalisation of assisted suicide would “endanger the lives of vulnerable people and seriously damage trust in the medical profession". SPUC presented the warnings in its submission to the consultation on the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill.
SPUC is calling on its supporters in Scotland to take part in the consultation and has produced a guide to help them. Drawing on the experience of countries where the practice has been introduced, SPUC argues that the legalisation of assisted suicide is a dangerous departure from medical ethics and a threat to human rights.
“Assisted suicide cannot be controlled”
Commenting on the disastrous consequences which have followed the passage of similar legislation in Europe, North America and Australia Michael Robinson, SPUC’s Director of Public Affairs said:
“Evidence shows that the legalisation of assisted suicide places additional pressure on vulnerable people. In Oregon in 2020, a majority of people killed by assisted suicide cited concern about being a burden on their families, friends and caregivers as a reason to end their lives. A recent report found that more than a third of older people in Scotland already feel that they are a burden on society.
“Assisted suicide cannot be controlled. The so-called slippery slope is real, we’ve seen it in the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada and several other countries. In time assisted suicide leads to euthanasia. Vulnerable groups, including disabled infants, dementia patients, psychiatric patients — people who are not dying and have not requested death — are killed because of the assumption that they’d be better off dead,” said Mr Robinson.
“It’s no wonder then that so many disabled people fear the introduction of assisted suicide. During the pandemic “Do Not Resuscitate” orders were put on hundreds of disabled people for no valid reason. Once the right to life is made conditional on the state of someone’s health, it means the frail, the elderly and the disabled become second class citizens who are not considered worthy of the same legal protection enjoyed by healthy people.”
Conflict between assisted suicide and palliative care
SPUC’s submission also cites evidence that assisted suicide takes an emotional toll on the medical personnel involved in this type of suicide.
Research into voluntary euthanasia in Canada has also highlighted the inherent conflict between assisted suicide and palliative care. The majority of doctors in the UK do not support assisted suicide. This opposition is strongest amongst doctors who work most closely with dying patients and are most familiar with treatments available.
When last polled, 82 per cent of members of the Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland rejected the legalisation of assisted suicide. According to Mr Robinson, the two approaches are fundamentally incompatible.
“Interviews with 23 doctors and nurses found that treatment that would remove or alleviate pain was frequently withheld from patients so they would remain eligible for assisted suicide under Canadian law,” he said. “Assisted suicide is often presented as a compassionate response to suffering but it’s not. It is, however, much cheaper for governments to fund the provision of lethal drugs for people to kill themselves rather than provide them with proper palliative care. Palliative care requires significantly more funding but it is a genuinely compassionate response to suffering. If the law were to change it would effectively create a duty to die because the seriously ill would be made to feel a burden on their families and the health service. Inevitably that is how they would be seen,” said Mr Robinson.
Respond to the consultation and defend the vulnerable
SPUC is encouraging everyone in Scotland to respond to the consultation and to tell their MSPs to reject the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill.
You can find SPUC’s briefing which will help you respond to the consultation here.
All responses to the consultation should be received no later than Wednesday 22nd December 2021.
To respond via theonline survey, go to: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/AssistedDyingProposal/
Responses not made via the online survey should, if possible, be prepared electronically (preferably in MS Word) and sent the document by e-mail as an attachment, rather than in the body of the e-mail, to: Liam.McArthur.msp@parliament.scot
Responses prepared in hard copy should either be scanned and sent as an attachment to the above e-mail address or sent by post to:
Liam McArthur MSP
Scottish Parliament
Edinburgh
EH99 1SP