The Scottish Health Committee is to seek the opinion of the United Nations on the assisted suicide legislation currently making its way through the Holyrood Parliament.
In an unexpected turn of events, a motion by Jeremy Balfour MSP calling for the treaty monitoring body on the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities to be consulted narrowly gained the backing of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee. The decision came at the start of the third week of consideration of amendments to the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill. Although a UN compliance committee has no legal authority, if concerns about the rights of people with disabilities were to be raised by an international body, it could seriously damage the credibility of Liam McArthur’s Bill.
The Health Committee made rapid progress in two sessions on Tuesday, 18 November, giving its approval to large portions of the Bill, including sections dealing with the use of lethal substances and how they would be administered. Amendments tabled by Marie McNair and Daniel Johnson that would explicitly require that only a patient could administer the drugs to him or herself were accepted, thereby ruling out the legalisation of euthanasia by the back door.
Amendments introduced by Jackie Bailey at the request of the Royal College of Nursing were also approved. The RCN had expressed concerns that the wording of the Bill risked placing nurses in a position where they would be solely responsible for overseeing the provision of lethal substances to patients. Although Liam McArthur argued that requiring a second medical professional to be present could lead to delays, the committee voted in favour of the changes recommended by the RCN. However, this was one of the very few instances when the committee did not simply comply with McArthur’s wishes.
A series of amendments from several MSPs addressing the potential side effects of the drugs to be used and what was to be done in the event of complications were soundly rejected.
Calling for a requirement that patients were fully informed of potential adverse reactions, Sue Webber said that her amendments were aimed at:
“…addressing the serious moral and medical flaws in the Bill, in that it is the assumption that the substances used in assisted suicide will always deliver a swift and painless death. …Experience from other countries shows that these substances can have severe side effects, and in places where assisted suicide is legal, there have been reports of vomiting, choking, fluid in the lungs, prolonged pain and even cases where the person did not die as expected. This is not a swift and painless death.”
There was, she said, “a chilling silence in the Bill” about what would happen if the patient did not die. Responding to Brian Whittle, whose amendments around the same issue had already been dismissed, Ms Webber said:
“Every possible safeguard should be included in this Bill, and I’ve sat today and last week and watched safeguard after safeguard be turned down. And I am gravely concerned with the direction this Bill is taking.”
The same concern was echoed later by Mr Whittle himself when he told the committee:
“The way in which a lot of these amendments are being dealt with by both the Member, Liam McArthur, and the committee is leading me to increasing disquiet. […] I don’t think the Bill, as currently drafted, takes into consideration or addresses properly what happens in the rare occurrence when something goes wrong.”
He went on to warn the committee that the blanket refusal of every additional protection would mean that it would lose support. He said:
“To date, there have been so many issues around safeguarding that have been put forward by Members that have been rejected that it concerns me… I voted for the principle of the Bill at stage one, and I hadn’t decided which side of the argument I would fall on at stage three. But I did say that there would have to be significant changes to the Bill around safeguarding if I was ever to support it at stage three.”
While a small number of proposals have been withdrawn following assurances from Mr McArthur that he would work with critics to resolve their concerns, the vast majority of amendments have been uniformly dismissed. So far, the unequivocal support of the committee has blocked any significant change to the Bill. This refusal to compromise could, however, backfire if it leads MSPs to conclude that the Bill is a threat to vulnerable groups, whether or not it is found to be incompatible with the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.
If you’re reading this and haven’t yet donated to SPUC, please consider helping now. Thank You!
