by David Robertson, Christian Today
In a surprising move, the Scottish Parliament this week voted to reject assisted suicide. And it wasn’t even close – 57 for and 69 against, with every party except the Lib Dems and the Greens having a majority voting against. Why did this happen? Especially when at the first two stages of the bill it comfortably passed.
And therein lies the answer. As MSPs got to look more closely at what was involved, they realised that the bill itself was badly worded and had insurmountable difficulties – like compelling staff and organisations who did not want to participate in ‘mercy killing’ to do so.
Like the threat of people feeling coerced. The bill would have made the treatment available to terminally ill, mentally competent adults who have been given less than six months to live – but opponents said there were not enough protections against coercion.
Like the government admitting that money would have to be taken from other frontline NHS services to provide for assisted suicide. The irony of taking money from the sick in order to kill people was not lost on some MSPs.
The level of propaganda and money behind the pro-assisted suicide people (someone should ask where all this money comes from – enabling massive ads in newspapers during the campaign?) means that it is not surprising that opinion polls show that the majority of the public seem to support assisted suicide – although it all depends on the question asked.
If you ask ‘would you prefer your granny to have a nice peaceful, pain-free death at the time and place of her own choosing, or to die in agony?’, then it is little wonder that the majority say yes. But if you ask ‘do you think more money should be spent on palliative care and doctors avoid being involved in killing people?’, you will get a different answer.
The trouble with the vox pop type of opinion polls is that they do not go into the complexities of the issues involved. When MSPs had the opportunity, they saw the difficulties and turned away from them.