Duncan Hamilton: Margo's bill could live or die, but it must do so with dignity

It is guaranteed to create as many opponents as supporters

LIFE as a legislator isn't a barrel of laughs. Certainly in my time as an MSP, I was forced to sit and listen to some life-sapping debates. If you doubt me, the very title of The Leasehold Casualties (Scotland) Bill makes the point. Legislative purgatory.

But the launch of Margo MacDonald's End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill, takes us to a different order of magnitude altogether. For this bill is serious, important and deserving of MSPs full attention.

We should be grateful to Margo MacDonald for presenting the bill in the way she has. This is the right issue to be debating, and it is the right time to be doing it. Is the issue divisive, emotional, and complex? Absolutely, and that is exactly why the Scottish Parliament should be addressing it.

This, after all, is why we have a parliament – a chance to explore the big issues and to address questions which are real and hard in the lives of every family in every part of Scotland.

Moreover, it is precisely why we have the kind of parliament in Scotland that we do. A central feature of the new form of devolved government was the promise of a "new politics". Most of that since 1999 has been predictably trampled beneath the stampede of politicians seeking party advantage. But the new legislative process was always specifically designed to allow independents and backbenchers to provide an avenue for alternative thinking. More importantly, it was an essential hope of this new "parliament of minorities" that reflection and thought might replace tribal party allegiance.

For me, this bill is what the Scottish Parliament is all about. Fresh, bold, thought-provoking and focused on a matter of genuine public concern.

Further, there is no prospect whatsoever that a government of any hue would advocate this change. Not only would each party be divided, but it pits the advocates of change against big and influential lobbies, already including the Catholic Church and the British Medical Association. Further, there are no votes in this policy – it is guaranteed to create as many opponents as supporters. It has therefore taken an independent MSP to get this bill to the starting line.

Will it become law? Again, the refreshing thing about this bill is that all MSPs will have a free vote. That inevitably makes the result unpredictable. What matters is that MSPs rise to the occasion. In the UK political caste system, MSPs remain emphatically second-class politicians, commonly (and wrongly) viewed as less able and less informed than MPs at Westminster.

But these moments – the Iraq debate in 2002 being another – are the ones that can change those perceptions. The tone of this debate deserves to be respectful, weighty and considered. It can show the Scottish Parliament in a massively positive light. When you read it, the merits of the bill are finely balanced. Issues of ethics, morality, the rights of the individual – these are concepts which demand reflection, but what MSPs need to decide at this stage is whether they are in agreement in principle.

Were I still an MSP, this bill would have had my support.

Plainly, when it comes to the best way to die, there is no right answer. But for me, there is a wrong one. The current uncertainty over prosecutions for family members who assist a terminally ill patient to die is utterly unsatisfactory. Is the "we'll probably turn a blind eye" approach of the Director of Public Prosecutions in England really the best we can do?

We all know that families and medical professionals make decisions every day about gradually increasing or decreasing dosages to patients in the full knowledge that they will be more likely to slip away. Maybe for some that vagueness is both necessary and a comfort. I respect that and, on a personal level, might even prefer it. That option, regardless of this bill, will remain.

But if we acknowledge, as surely we must, that there are those who want to make a different choice and who want actively to end their lives, then what kind of society are we that refuses to make that choice possible?

Ultimately, this must not be presented as a choice between life and death. In the case of someone, to quote the terms of the bill, "who has been diagnosed as terminally ill and who finds life intolerable", it is a choice between death now, or death a little later.

No doctor or patient will be forced into this. It is no more than the creation of a voluntary additional option for those in an extremely limited number of cases – estimated at 50 per year.

Reading the bill, I think some of it needs to be tightened and it may well be that additional safeguards are required and that every option isn't covered. But that is precisely what the legislative process is for, and we should trust to it.

Above all, I hope MSPs enter the debate with an open mind. They should expect to change their opinion several times. They should not be scared of doing so, because the vast majority of voters are similarly torn. This bill poses big and tough questions which take all of us out of the comfort zone. But it is a necessary debate and one from which the Scottish Parliament can derive great credit if it approaches the issues properly.

There will doubtless be those who make dramatic and headline-grabbing interventions as this debate progresses. But for the sake of the issue, and for the reputation of the Scottish Parliament, it is vital that whether this bill lives or dies, it does so with dignity.