Last minute push to progress suicide Bill

INDEPENDENT Lothians MSP Margo MacDonald has issued an eleventh-hour appeal to MSPs to allow her Bill to legalise assisted suicide to pass a key parliamentary hurdle.

She urged Holyrood politicians to recognise public support for her proposal and let the legislation progress to the next stage of scrutiny and debate rather than vote it down.

Ms MacDonald wants to change the law to make Scotland the first part of the UK where doctors could legally help patients to die.

She recently revealed poll findings suggesting nearly eight out of ten Scots back her plans.

The Scottish Parliament is due to vote on the general principles of the End of Life Assistance Bill on Wednesday.

Ms MacDonald said: "Public opinion is in favour of it progressing to the next stage. If it should go through on Wednesday then it goes back to committee and it's scrutinised line by line, clause by clause.

"Public opinion wants to see that happen because opinion polling is just too consistent.

"It's the people who are paying for us supposedly to represent them. If they have their way, it will go through to the next stage. That doesn't mean to say it will become law, but it means that there's going to be further examination of it and it's needed."

The survey released last week, carried out by Angus Reid Public Opinion, found 77 per cent of Scots agreed people with "intolerable terminal illnesses" should have the option of being helped to end their life if they wished to do so.

But the Bill's proposals have split opinion, with doctors' leaders and religious groups opposed to them.

MSPs on the Holyrood committee scrutinising her proposals have also said they were "not persuaded the case had been made" for assisted suicide.

Ms MacDonald said the committee's decision was not representative of public opinion.

She said: "MSPs are scared just now, frankly, because we're going into an election.

"They don't want to have the churches preaching against them. I've heard of some quite close to the mark activities at constituency level where MSPs are thinking about supporting the Bill.

"I sincerely hope that that stops and that MSPs consider this legislation with the same sort of objectivity as they consider other legislation."

Ms MacDonald was asked about the Church of Scotland's warning that her Bill "undermines us as a society by endorsing the deliberate ending of human life". She said: "Are we to infer from this that the communities in the world where they have assisted dying lack humanity?

"Are we going to say that about Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Oregon and the other states in America where they're busily trying to find a way of incorporating this into their law?"