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.
You would hope as Dr Gordon Macdonald, CEO of Care Not Killing, stated “that we must improve palliative care in Scotland in the future … No one should have to suffer a painful death, and we have to invest in palliative care services to ensure that everyone has dignity at the end of life.”
It will be interesting to see if the Scottish government goes down this route or whether we just wait until the bill is resurrected in another form. The journalist Kevin McKenna writing in the Herald was scathing: “Do you really think that the Scottish Greens and the SNP will spend money on helping those at the end of their lives? Behave yourselves. Assisted Dying was always an attractive, cost-effective alternative than having to spend money on people they loathed when they were in good health.”
The BBC, with its usual partiality, reported it as a missed opportunity and treated the bill’s proposer Liam McArthur as though he was some kind of victim. They failed to mention that McArthur’s bill was prepared to close down Catholic hospices rather than let them opt out.
Another commentator, Iain Macwhirter, noted the contribution of two disabled MSPs: “The Independent MSP Jeremy Balfour warned that disabled people were ‘terrified’ that they might be subtly induced to seek assisted dying in order to relieve the ‘burden’ on family and health services. The ex-Labour MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy MBE, speaking from her wheelchair, made a passionate case against ‘choosing to make it easier to live than to die’. Most of the supporters of the bill argued for personal choice. But what choice did the elderly and disabled really have when social care, palliative care and disabled facilities are so inadequate?”
From a Christian perspective this is good news – the Roman Catholic church, Free Church of Scotland, Baptist Union and Evangelical alliance were all strongly opposed. The Church of Scotland was officially opposed but allowed ‘diversity’. Only the Scottish Episcopalian Church was in favour.
But although this was good news for the elderly, poor, sick and disabled in Scotland, it may only be a stay of execution. Like the Terminator, the bill will be back! Despite Alex Cole-Hamilton, the Lib Dem leader, saying that “this is the moment of final decision’, because the decision did not go their way. As one supporter put it: "We only have to win the argument once.” Why? Do they not think it is possible to reverse a bad law?
This indicates how ‘progressivism’ works. They keep pushing and pushing until a permissive law is passed. Then that law becomes an irreversible basic ‘human right’ which can never be changed. What gets me is that despite the fact that the Scottish Parliament has debated euthanasia three times and three times has rejected it, the 'progressives' are so sure of their doctrines that they will just keep bringing it back until they get their way. They despise democracy.
Some argued that this was a great debate – showing the benefits of informed discussion at this level. There were a few excellent speeches, including that of Humza Yousaf, the former First Minister who spoke clearly against, but I am more inclined towards the opinion of Kevin McKenna: “Let’s be honest here: there was little that was uplifting about this at all. It was a sickening display of narcissistic exceptionalism. A cohort of affluent, middle-class actors seeking group hugs and sympathy by weaponising the deaths of their loved ones to make a bad law that would principally target those with none of their choices and privileges.”
Again, I have noted a pattern here: people congratulate themselves on a respectful and good debate – but keep going until they get what they want. And then all respect is thrown out of the window.
The uncomfortable truth is that this victory may only be temporary. The principle of assisted suicide was supported in the first two stages but the bill itself was a badly worded, hubristic piece of legislation. Until the foundations of Scottish society return to its Christian roots, I suspect that this reprieve may only last for a short time.
David Robertson is the former minister of St Peters Free Church in Dundee and a former Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland. He is currently the minister of Scots Kirk Presbyterian Church in Newcastle, New South Wales, and blogs at The Wee Flea.
