Readers' letters: Let's kill the Assisted Dying Bill, not people
A reader makes an impassioned plea for MSPs to reject the Assisted Dying Bill on the day of the final vote
As our MSPs prepare to vote on the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill today, I would urge them to take a stand for life and reject this unnecessary, unethical, uncontrollable and deeply flawed bill.
Allowing suicide – and permitting others to assist in it – not only makes the act more acceptable, it allows it to become systematised. When we come to see assisted suicide as just another medical treatment, it will take on the legitimacy of any other medical treatment. Like other legitimate medical treatments, in certain circumstances it will be looked upon not as an option but an expectation – normal practice. As it becomes a normal practice, there will be pressure on vulnerable patients to choose it; just to get out of the way and stop being a burden. The mere availability of assisted suicide is a coercive force.
Currently, the law safeguards the vulnerable and upholds life – while showing compassion to those who break the law. Allowing assisted suicide would destroy the law’s careful balance and it would no longer defend the intrinsic value and dignity of every human life. Do we really want to create a law that implies some lives are worth less than others?
We live in a very utilitarian culture, in which things – and people – are valued according to how useful they are. When we try to imagine not being able to do the things we enjoy now – or even perform basic functions – we tend to think, “I wouldn’t like to live like that” and so assisted suicide can seem a legitimate option.
It is very common for people who cavalierly swore in their impregnable youth that they would rather die than lose their mobility or faculties to realise, when it actually happens to them, that they fiercely want to live. Humans have a remarkable ability to adapt, and it is dangerous to base public policy, which affects everyone, on how we feel in the prime of our health, and how we think we will feel when we lose certain capabilities.
On this St Patrick’s Day, we remember the legend of the saint driving the snakes – evil forces – from Ireland. May the saint intercede today and drive out the evil forces at work within the Scottish Parliament. I hold the radical view that killing humans is wrong. I hope our MSPs see sense and decide to stand on the right side of truth. Let’s kill the bill, not the people.
Martin Conroy, Cockburnspath, Scottish Borders
Will of the people
With recent defections it seems that Scotland’s assisted dying law is in the balance. When parliament votes against an issue with overwhelming public support, it fundamentally undermines the principle of representative democracy, transforming representatives from delegates of the people into a detached ruling elite. A democratic system derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed; therefore, when elected officials deliberately ignore a clear mandate – expressed through polls, petitions, or referendums – they violate that consent.
This disconnect fosters voter cynicism and disengagement, as constituents lose faith in the efficacy of the democratic process. Furthermore, when parliament acts against the majority will, it risks promoting minority rule or special interest influence, silencing the public voice it is tasked with representing. While MPs are expected to exercise judgment, consistently acting against overwhelming consensus is anti-democratic, reducing democracy to a performance rather than a direct reflection of public sovereignty.
Doug Clark, Edinburgh
Trumpspotting
Donald Trump is the international political equivalent of Francis Begbie – turning against others without warning, getting into messy fights without clear purpose purely on the basis of his certainly of winning, then justifying the material, physical and psychological damage resultant with a litany of lies, in full belligerent confidence of his friends’ unwavering shielding of him from all consequences or censure.
Like Renton, it’s long past the time we took that walk over Waterloo Bridge away from it.
Mark Boyle, Johnstone, Renfrewshire
Wheeler dealer
As Donald Trump is so fond of deals, why don’t the EU and UK leaders show some initiative and tell Mr Trump we’ll help him out of the mess he’s created in the Middle East by allowing the United States to use our airfields, and we’ll provide escorts for shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, if he commits his military muscle to throwing Russia out of Ukraine? Or is it too late as we’ve already agreed to help?
Graham M McLeod, Kinross, Perth and Kinross
Finish the job
“It is time to finish the job we started.” So John Swinney proudly proclaimed at the weekend SNP campaign conference. I wonder which job he was referring to? Building two ferries, dualling the A9, instituting a national care service, cutting the attainment gap, building a new prison, reducing drug deaths, cutting class sizes, meeting NHS targets? I could go on. Or delve further back into, say, abolishing the council tax, eradicating bed blocking or introducing the Named Persons scheme.
On and on and on goes the list of jobs the SNP have started and abjectly failed to complete. The only context in which they have shown competence is in hiding the truth and pulling the wool over the eyes of the public. If the result of the upcoming election hung on the record of the incumbent government the SNP would not have a snowball’s chance in hell.
Colin Hamilton, Edinburgh
The whole truth
Eric Melvin is quite right to condemn Edinburgh Council for its Melville Monument plaque in St Andrew Square (Letters, 13 March) but it is more than an embarrassment – the wording is a disgraceful calumny on Henry Dundas, who ensured the practical means whereby Wilberforce’s campaign for the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade and of slavery itself was achieved. It is unfair, partial in both senses, biased, and misleading. A bald truth without the whole truth can often be no better than a lie.
This year, the 250th anniversary of the USA, would be an appropriate time for the council to rectify matters – and incidentally, for those countries advocating compensation by the UK, to acknowledge that the trade would not have existed, or at least not to the same extent, without the willing participation of, and financial benefit to, West African kings and chieftains, as some of their descendants are beginning to accept.
It is sad that our respected university history departments seem to have remained silent on this distortion, despite the valid critique by Sir Tom Devine when the plaque was first installed.
John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife
Under the bus
“Scottish teachers are being thrown under the bus,” says a letter written to the Education Secretary by retired staff (your report, 16 March). As a teacher herself, Jenny Gilruth, must know this.
What is needed in Scottish schools is nothing short of a revolution, as more and more teachers are retiring earlier and earlier, and far too often are not replaced. Quite literally, we’re getting education on the cheap.
It would be interesting to know the percentage of the time, teachers actually teach. As well as dealing with bad behaviour, often violent, they amazingly cope with those pupils with additional special needs.
Scottish teachers have a proud history of inclusive education, but that must be well staffed and paid for. Classroom assistants should be valued with higher pay.
While there’s always money freely available for defence and war, far too often education has to feed from the crumbs off the military table. Our children, so vital to our future, deserve far better than this, even those who misbehave. After all it’s a societal problem, searching for a societal solution.
Ian Petrie, Edinburgh
Original sin
You report that a study has found that “some babies grasp art of deception even before their first birthday” (16 March).
Well, well. For those of us who have had children or anyone who has dealt with young children, this is definitely not something new. We can all testify to it. In fact it is called original sin and has been with us since time began. King David in Psalm 51 says: “From my birth I have been sinful – such the nature I received – sinful from my first beginning in my mother’s womb conceived.”
This may not be a popular view in today’s culture but the evidence is surely all around us.
Dreena White, Blairgowrie, Perth and Kinross
Long suffering
On Radio Scotland yesterday two doctors explained the difficulties they have accessing specialist training (for example, one place for every 175 applicants for GP training) They said that as Australia and New Zealand accepted their qualification many Scottish-trained doctors left and went abroad.
Health Secratary Neil Grey was then interviewed and gave his usual mealy-mouthed answers quoting statistics. His waffling did not recognise the lack of progress after 19 years in power or the increase in our population or the harm that long waits cause both medically and emotionally. But at least I now know why the NHS Lothian website tells me I have two years two months and two weeks to wait for an appointment in gynaecology to diagnose my medical issue before treatment can begin.
Elizabeth Hands, Armadale, West Lothian
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