by Stephen Kerr, Conservative Home
I voted against the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill at Stage 1.
I did so, not just because I remain fundamentally opposed to the principle of assisted dying, but because I have deep misgivings about the drafting and effect of this particular Bill.
Of course, once a Bill passes its first parliamentary test, we as MSPs are duty-bound to scrutinise it seriously, consider whether it can conceivably be workable as legislation and, where necessary, seek to improve it wherever possible. That duty remains, even amid disagreement and with a narrow margin of support at Stage 1. It is how legislatures work – and how laws are either improved or, where necessary, stopped.
The Bill’s safe passage through its remaining stages is far from guaranteed. The Stage 1 vote was close, and many MSPs supported it with clear reservations. That should not be mistaken for consensus. It should be taken as a call for deeper examination.
It is one thing to talk about assisted dying in abstract terms: rights, autonomy, control. But it is a different venture entirely when the wider context in which this law would operate is considered. This Bill is not abstract. It is real. And real people will be affected.
Take Peter Sefton-Williams.
Peter was wrongly diagnosed with motor neurone disease and told he could have as little as six months to live. Terrified by the prospect of losing the ability to move, swallow, or speak, he filled out the paperwork for Dignitas. He even visited a known suicide spot on the Sussex coast as a backup plan. He was convinced his fate had been sealed. But when his symptoms did not worsen, doctors ran further tests and discovered he had a different, far less severe condition: multifocal motor neuropathy. Peter survived. But as he later said, if he had insisted on ending his life, people would have said he made a dignified choice, on his own terms. The truth is, he would have died needlessly, based on a mistake. “I would have killed myself,” he said, “and nobody would have known that in fact I wasn’t ill at all.”