Great British Bake Off judge Dame Prue Leith has been told that legislative proposals to legalise assisted suicide in Scotland will put the “vulnerable at risk of coercion”.
The television presenter, who is patron of “Dignity in Dying”, formerly known as the “Voluntary Euthanasia Society”, will be joining Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur in Holyrood in support of his Member’s Bill on legalising assisted suicide in Scotland.
Ahead of Prue Leith’s visit to Holyrood, Chief Executive of Care Not Killing Dr Gordon MacDonald warned that “the legislation of assisted suicide and euthanasia will put many vulnerable people at risk of abuse and coercion”.
Dr MacDonald said: “Put simply, it’s impossible to have a safe system of medicalised killing and MSPs should reject Liam McArthur’s dangerous and discriminatory proposals.”
This is the third time that assisted suicide legislation has been attempted in Scotland, which last rejected such a bill in 2015 by 82 votes to 36.
If passed, the proposed Bill will allow patients to commit suicide “by means of medication provided by a doctor for that purpose”.
Exploitation of the vulnerable
Michael Robinson, SPUC Executive Director (Public Affairs), said: “Assisted suicide opens the door to the exploitation of the vulnerable at the hands of a culture of death masquerading as compassion.
“Scotland has already made its thoughts on this matter quite clear, refusing to turn to death as an answer to the challenges of care.
“Wherever and whenever assisted suicide is introduced, the pattern is the same: we see the vulnerable, elderly and even the disabled placed under increasing pressure to end their own lives, as SPUC has detailed.”
Resisting dangerous legislation
Deaths from euthanasia and assisted suicide have surged in Belgium, where such procedures were legalised, from just 24 in 2002 to 2,656 in 2019, according to the Institute for Medical Anthropology and Bioethics (IMABE).
Earlier this year, SPUC reported that over 13,000people were killed by assisted suicide in Canada during 2022, a third of whom said they feared being a burden on family and friends.
Mr Robinson continued: “As we can see, such legislation is simply unacceptable and quite frankly irresponsible, which the Scottish people, as they made clear already in 2015, evidently recognise.
“We will resist this dangerous and irresponsible Bill together. We will promote true compassion in our society. We will protect the vulnerable.”