Margo MacDonald to introduce an assisted suicide bill in Scotland

On 29th October Debbie Purdy, a wheelchair-bound Multiple Sclerosis (MS) sufferer, failed to have the law on assisted suicide in England clarified. She had wished to have it interpreted to protect the position of those who might transport a terminally ill but disabled loved one abroad for an assisted suicide.

The following day, Margo MacDonald MSP announced that she is to attempt to introduce a bill to make assisted suicide legal in Scotland. Lib Dem MSP, Jeremy Purvis, has previoulsy had a bill on the same subject before the Scottish Parliament and has seen it fail.

Margo Macdonald’s plan is to build patients’ right to choose to end their lives, with assistance, into the principles of palliative care.

She says she believes it is ‘inhumane and ultimately futile’ for the law to deny the right to choose when to die’. Her intention is to start a serious public debate on the matter. She feels that it has progressively become a matter of considerable public interest and that therefore politicians must explore it fully.

Herself a Parkinsons sufferer, Mr MacDonald has long made it clear that if her condition deterioriates she will want the right to choose when to end her life with whatever assistance is necessary.

The distressing aspect of Debbie Purdy’s case in England is that this articulate woman is likely to travel abroad for an assisted suicide sooner than she would have chosen had she won the interpretation she sought. If she waits now until she is no longer physically able to travel alone, however mentally lucid she is, her husband will be open to prosecution for assisting a sucide when he returns to England alone. She has no intention of putting him in that position.

Mrs MacDonald is aware that the most difficult case to legislate for is that of someone who is no longer mentally able to make the decision to die. Her research in Holland has found a sensible potential model. There the decision may be made on behalf of the patient by a doctor – but only if that doctor has had – and can show – a long standing medical relationship with the patient.