While British Conservatives are calling to kill the old and infirm to save the state some cash, the former leader of the hard-left Scottish National Party (SNP) has warned of the grave dangers of assisted suicide.
Nicola Sturgeon, who resigned as Scottish First Minister at the beginning of last year following a trans rapist scandal, may be an unlikely ally of those opposed to assisted suicide, but has made a more serious stand against the argument for a change to the law than leading figures in the UK Conservative Party appear capable of mustering.
Dr. Gordon Macdonald, who is CEO of the Care Not Killing campaign group for improved palliative care, told The European Conservative that her contribution “speaks volumes.”
Writing in Wednesday’s Glasgow Times, Sturgeon said:
I worry that even with the best of intentions and the most carefully worded legislation, it will be impossible to properly guarantee that no-one at the end of their life will feel a degree of pressure [exactly as former Tory MP Matthew Parris last week said they should], a sense that it might be better for others for them not be here—even if their loved ones try to persuade them otherwise.
And, even more, fundamentally, I worry about the thin end of the wedge. That if we normalise assisted dying—if we come to associate dignity at the end of life with choosing to die, rather than being supported to live in as much peace and comfort as possible—then we will, as a society, lose focus on the palliative and end-of-life care and support that is necessary to help people, even in the worst of circumstances, to live with dignity.
Despite describing herself as “conflicted” on what the press euphemistically calls ‘assisted dying,’ not least because of moving accounts from individuals who are terminally ill, Sturgeon noted that “the more deeply I think about the different issues involved, the more I find myself veering away from a vote in favour, not towards it.”
Her comments came in response to the introduction of the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill in Holyrood, the Scottish Parliament.
Dr. Macdonald praised the former first minister for having “recognised the huge dangers with [Liberal Democrat Member of the Scottish Parliament] Liam McArthur’s Bill, including that a majority of those ending their lives in Oregon [where the ‘Death with Dignity Act’ has been in force since 1997] fear being a burden on their loved ones, carers or finances and that safeguards are eroded over time. He told this publication:
The draft Holyrood legislation that has been published is far broader than the so-called ‘Oregon model,’ because it treats most disabilities as terminal diseases, does not require any prognosis of life expectancy or that death be expected imminently and includes young people aged 16 and 17 possibly without parental knowledge or consent.
There is nothing progressive about removing long established legal protections that ensure terminally ill and disabled people can’t be pressured into ending their lives prematurely, especially when our NHS is on its knees and hospices are desperately short of funds.
Sturgeon’s comments also come after Care Not Killing’s Alistair Thompson told The European Conservative of the importance of cross-party support on this issue.
After Sturgeon pointed to the likelihood of “the tightly drawn provisions of this bill extended much further [over time],” Dr. Macdonald expressed his “hope” that Scottish politicians “reject this latest bill and turn their attention to fixing Scotland’s broken palliative care system.”
We need fully funded palliative and social care, not killing.
