Elderly, lonely and vulnerable people would be placed at huge risk if the Scottish Parliament backed a proposed assisted suicide Bill, the country’s bishops have said.
In a submission to the consultation on assisted suicide proposed by Liam McArthur, a Lib Dem MSP, the Scottish Catholic bishops have opposed the concept as an attack on human dignity which will undermine efforts to prevent all suicides, damage public trust in doctors and leave frail, elderly and disabled people feeling they are a burden on society.
“Assisted suicide sends a clear message to frail, elderly and disabled people about the value that society places on them and puts pressure on them to end their lives for fear of being a financial, emotional or care burden on others,” the bishops said.
The cited a 2020 report from Oregon, a US state which legalised assisted suicide in 1997 and in which last year 53 per cent of people requesting death at their hands of their doctors listed “being a burden” as a reason to end their lives.
“In such situations the option of assisted suicide becomes less about having a ‘right’ to die and more about feeling the full weight and expectation of a ‘duty’ to die,” the bishops said.
“When the elderly express concerns about being a burden, the appropriate response is not to suggest that they have a duty to die – rather, it is to commit to meeting their needs and providing the care and compassion to help them live.
“If Scotland establishes death on demand as normal practice, it can easily become a cultural expectation for the elderly, the lonely, and the vulnerable,” they added.
Their comments were included in a response to the three-month consultation into the Assisted Dying Bill of Mr McArthur, which ended this week.
His proposals will be considered by the Scottish Assembly next year at a time when the Assisted Dying Bill of Baroness Meacher is progressing through the House of Lords and Jersey plans to legalise both euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Baroness Meacher, the chair of Dignity in Dying – the group formerly known as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society – has also tabled an amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill in an attempt to make assisted suicide a component of palliative care.
The Scottish bishops said the proposals due to go before MSPs provide “a quick, cheap alternative to good palliative care”.
“Rather than increasing options at the end of life as proponents would wish us to believe, these proposals actually appear to limit people’s options when they are at their most vulnerable,” they said.
The bishops added: “No matter how well intentioned the safeguards are, it is impossible for any government to draft assisted suicide laws which include legal protection from future expansion of those laws. The slippery slope is real and dangerous.”
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