Fears Scots law won't change as Swiss back right-to-die 'tourism'

Published on Sunday 15 May 2011 17:30

SCOTTISH right-to-die campaigners have given a mixed response to the news that foreigners will still be able to travel to Switzerland for "suicide tourism".

The Swiss Federal Democratic Union Party had been seeking to restrict the flow of people wanting to take their own lives, believing their treks to Zurich gave Switzerland a bad name.

However, exit polls in a ballot held in the Swiss city on the issue yesterday showed that just 20 per cent of people supported a ban on foreigners despite years of publicity surrounding controversial deaths aided by the Dignitas right-to-die group in and around Zurich.

Some 164 Britons are among those from abroad who have died there.

Friends at the End (Fate), a Glasgow-based right-to-die campaign group whose members have accompanied patients wanting to end their lives to Switzerland, said while those who could afford to travel could still have an assisted death, the ballot result could also mean other nations put off looking at the issue and introducing their own legislation.

Sheila Duffy, spokeswoman for Fate, said: "In some ways, if it had been supported and people couldn't go to Switzerland anymore it might force countries like the UK to take a closer look at assisted suicide. But because there is this pressure valve, those with money can go to Switzerland.

"In some ways I welcome the fact that people can still go, but, in the long run, we want the law changed in this country, and because there is this escape valve it will mean the whole thing will be prolonged in this country."

The campaign to legalise assisted dying in Scotland, led by independent MSP Margo MacDonald, was rejected by the Scottish Parliament last year.

The result of the ballot in Switzerland was a shock for the Federal Democratic Union Party, which believed it had a "real chance" of putting an end to so-called death-pilgrimages. "The people have spoken and it wasn't for us," said a spokesman.

Their motion sought to impose a one-year residency requirement in Zurich for those who legally wanted to end their lives.

A second option on the ballot paper for voters - to ban assisted suicides altogether - was heavily defeated with just over 13 per cent agreeing with the proposal.

Assisted suicide has been allowed in Switzerland since 1941 if performed by a non-physician who has no vested interest in the death.

Euthanasia, or "mercy killing", is legal only in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium and the US state of Oregon.