Meeting of the Parliament 27 May 2015
I say at the outset that I will not support the bill. Five years ago, I voted against Margo MacDonald’s End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill, having been a member of the committee that scrutinised it at stage 1. As a member of the current Health and Sport Committee, I have studied the evidence that has been presented to us at stage 1 of the successor bill. I determined to approach it with an open mind, to give full consideration to all the evidence that was put before us and to listen carefully to all those putting the case either for or against the proposed legislation. The bill would allow protection from prosecution for a person who was licensed as a facilitator to assist someone who had capacity and a life-shortening or terminal illness that to them had become intolerable to take their own life. It would not allow euthanasia.
As previously, I found the help that was given to us by the committee clerks, SPICe and our adviser absolutely invaluable, and I put on record my thanks to them and to the many witnesses who gave evidence to us for their assistance throughout the stage 1 scrutiny of the bill. In the end, after lengthy and very careful consideration of all the evidence, as shown in our committee report, we decided not to make a specific recommendation to the Parliament but rather to allow members to come to their own conclusions.
Personally, as a former health professional, the idea of actively and deliberately hastening death by assisting someone to die is deeply disturbing. I share the view of many professional colleagues that legislating for that would risk undermining patient trust in doctors and medical advice, and I cannot come to terms with what is proposed.
There have been significant improvements in palliative care in recent years, and in my view that is the way forward: to enable the vast majority of patients to experience a dignified and comfortable death in the place of their choice when that inevitability arrives.
I accept that there will be a few patients—and indeed they are very few—for whom palliative care cannot be 100 per cent effective, but I am not convinced that that is sufficient reason to legislate for what some see as a merciful act, and nor are the palliative care specialists who deal personally with those very difficult and complex cases.
Persistent requests for assisted suicide or euthanasia are extremely rare if people are given good care that addresses their physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs. I sincerely believe that to achieve a good death is as vital a part of healthcare as any care that a patient receives throughout life, and that good palliative care is far preferable to legally assisted suicide.
Unfortunately there is at present a gap in palliative care provision, and many people who would benefit from that form of holistic end-of-life care are therefore not considered for it. Like the Marie Curie organisation, I believe that palliative care should be planned as soon as an illness is deemed to be terminal, which could mean death within days, weeks, months or even years. That could apply to people with a wide variety of conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart failure and dementia—and, of course, cancer and progressive neurological conditions.
As MSPs, we should be giving serious consideration to end-of-life care, as the Health and Sport Committee plans to do, and Government should be persuaded to put more resource into the holistic care of the terminally ill.
I simply cannot agree with the basic concept of the Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill. However, even if I could support its underlying principles, I note that the proposed legislation is flawed in many respects and would require significant amendment if it were to get past stage 1. I cannot address the shortcomings of the bill in the short time that is left to me, although I have no doubt that those issues will be highlighted by my colleagues, as they have been by the deputy convener of the Health and Sport Committee.
I will finish by referring to a letter that I received some months ago from a constituent who has been tetraplegic for nearly 40 years following a road accident. He gives a very moving account of his battles with depression and despair as he gradually adapted over time to his changed life—an adaptation that he achieved only after undergoing prolonged counselling and receiving help to find and develop new avenues of activity.
He expresses his dismay that young people with paralysis like his, following sporting injury, can resort to assisted suicide in Switzerland. He says that they still have mind and voice and probably other capacities, depending on the exact level of injury, but they would need the sort of care that he received to bring them to terms with an alternative way of life. My constituent is therefore appalled that the bill does not insist on medical and psychiatric assessment before someone starts along the path to assisted suicide, and that it provides no requirement for counselling or for filling the gap in cases where someone’s only experience has been of some unsuitable medical facility without any experience of rehabilitation.
His closing words are:
“I beg you to reject this Bill. Above all, do not destroy the trust between patients and the medical profession. Hospitals must not become places where patients fear those who care for them. The aim must be to help the family in their supporting role, and to strengthen counselling, rehabilitation and hospice facilities.”
Presiding Officer, I rest my case.
15:28