Members of the Scottish Parliament, which is the latest Western legislative body to consider expanding assisted suicide, rejected efforts in committee to restrict the practice with young people, disabled people, and others.
Liam McArthur, a member of the body, introduced a bill last year that would “allow terminally ill adults in Scotland, who are eligible, to lawfully request, and be provided with, assistance by health professionals to end their own life.”
The legislation is moving through the committee process.
Some of his colleagues introduced a bill restricting the more shocking cases of assisted suicide, under which patients can legally opt to have a doctor take their lives.
Scottish lawmakers introduced amendments seeking to prevent the worst abuses under McArthur’s bill.
Jeremy Balfour, another member of Scottish Parliament, proposed also excluding those who seek assisted suicide because of a non-terminal medical issue, according to a release from the Catholic Parliamentary Office.
His amendment would have blocked assisted suicides for reasons of anorexia, loneliness, financial hardship, and even intellectual obstacles like Down’s Syndrome.
The committee currently weighing the bill nevertheless rejected the proposal.
Balfour told the Catholic Parliamentary Office that the definition of terminal illness in the present version of the assisted suicide bill is unclear and likely overly broad.
“As it stands it could include individuals who would live not for weeks or months, but for years,” he said.
“People managing long-term conditions, people receiving treatment that stabilises their illness, people who still have meaningful time ahead of them, would all fall within the scope of the Bill as drafted at the moment.”
Yet another amendment, which would have required people to have full palliative support plans, was also rejected.
That measure would have made sure everyone pursuing assisted suicide truly evaluated their options.
Western nations have increasingly passed laws or regulations allowing for assisted suicide.
The practice accounted for more than 15,000 deaths in Canada during the year 2023, according to a report from the BBC.
That means assisted suicide composed 4.7 percent of overall deaths in the nation.
Australia, New Zealand, Spain, and Austria are among the other countries which now permit people to take their own lives through assisted suicide.
Many have pointed to a decline in Christianity, which affirms the value of human life from fertilization to death, as a factor allowing the expansion of assisted suicide.
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