Margo says 50 Scots a year would die under suicide law

Published on Thursday 21 January 2010 08:49

ABOUT 50 Scots a year would use Margo MacDonald's "assisted dying" law to end their lives, the MSP claimed today.

She said experience in other countries showed that where assisted deaths were legal, they accounted for roughly one death in every 2,000.

Ms MacDonald said her End of Life Assistance Bill, published today, included a range of safeguards to ensure the law was not abused. The Independent Lothians MSP suffers from Parkinson's disease and has said she would like the reassurance of knowing she could decide when her life should end if it became unbearable.

&#149 Do you support Margo MacDonald's "assisted dying" law?

Under her proposals, the groups eligible to ask for assistance would be people with a terminal illness and people suffering from a long-term progressive, degenerative condition, such as multiple sclerosis or Parkinson's, who feel their life has become intolerable.

The Bill will now be passed to the Scottish Parliament's health committee and is expected to face its first vote in the autumn.

Ms MacDonald said: "It rests on the principle of accepting the autonomy of anyone to determine how their life ends. I believe that dying is part of life and I see no contradiction at all in the autonomy of the individual being recognised in how they live their life and how their life will end."

She said in other countries which allowed assisted dying, such arrangements accounted for between 0.5 and two deaths per 1,000 total deaths.

She said: "They have found that a fairly consistent and very small percentage of people decide they want to end their lives before nature would.

"Because I'm so convinced of the universality of that attitude, I have no fear that our figure in Scotland will be greater than the figure elsewhere. We estimate it might be around 50 deaths a year across Scotland."

To avoid people from elsewhere coming to Scotland to take advantage of the law, anyone seeking an assisted death would have to be registered with a medical practice for 18 months before making the request. They would have to make a formal request to a doctor, who would assess their condition and discuss their options.

The doctor would also be required to get a second opinion from a psychiatrist. Ms MacDonald said: "The purpose of that is to make sure it is not a case of depression which could be treated."

The patient would then have to wait a further 15 days before making a second formal request, which would again be discussed with a doctor and a psychiatrist.

If the request was accepted, there would then be a further period of at least two days before the assisted death takes place. Patients who delayed more than 28 days would have to start the process again.

As a further safeguard, the Bill also provides that all assisted deaths would be classed as "unusual deaths" and have to be checked by the procurator fiscal.

Ms MacDonald said she did not know whether the Bill would be passed by the parliament or not.

But she said opinion polls suggested between two-thirds and three-quarters of the public believed there should be a legal right to seek assistance to die in a dignified and peaceful way.

"If MSPs are guided by the wishes of their constituents and public opinion, it would pass."