Scottish parliament rejects assisted dying law

MSPs vote 82-36 against bill that proposed those with terminal illnesses could seek help of doctor to end their lives, after deeply personal debate

Margo MacDonald, who fought a long battle with Parkinson’s disease, initiated the bill before her death last year.

The Scottish parliament has voted to reject legislation on assisted dying following a heartfelt and at times deeply personal debate on Wednesday, carried out in the shadow of the late MSP Margo MacDonald, who initiated the bill before her death last year.

MSPs voted by 82 to 36 against the general principles of the assisted suicide (Scotland) bill. It had proposed that those with terminal or life-shortening illnesses should be able to obtain help to end their suffering.

MSPs were given a free vote on the bill, which would allow those with terminal illnesses to seek the help of a doctor to end their own life, although the Scottish government did not support changing the law.

Extremely glad that the Scottish parliament rejected this and actually somewhat surprised.

Idiots. There is no reason to be against it, as long as it's properly regulated.

Why do you disagree with this law?

I'd possibly be open to less harsh sentences for those who help somebody go abroad.

Idiots. There is no reason to be against it, as long as it's properly regulated.

How ridiculous. The assisted dying law is just. Aside from the morons who oppose it for religious reasons, (their opinions ought to be automatically voided), what other objections are there? Other than "Well it could lead to anyone committing suicide." Or something along those lines.

In Oregon, a recent study of people who took their lives with assisted suicide revealed that one in every six were suffering from depression

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Terminally ill people are vulnerable members of society. Some might feel under psychological pressure to ease the burden on their families.

A hospice nurse told me about a lovely 24-year-old given three months to live. Five years later, she is still with us and the mother of a child. Every good doctor knows that medicine is an art as well as a science. No one can predict with 100% certainty who will live and who will die. Although it is rare, some terminally ill people can and do get better. Everyone who works in hospice can tell you at least one story attesting to that. They personally knew a patient who beat the odds and is still vertical today.

This week, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld a $4 million award to the family of a woman misdiagnosed with cancer and then given a lethal dose of painkillers.The 66-year-old woman received massive doses of painkillers at a hospice for cancer, which an autopsy showed she never had, according to court records. That’s just this week’s news. It happens all the time.

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The JOURNAL of the AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (JAMA) Vol 284, No 4, reports that medical errors may be the third leading cause of death in the United States at 225,000 deaths per year.

Today’s AD-Assisted suicide laws cannot be written so as to prevent abuse. This is the reason the American Medical Association opposes assisted suicide. Doctors know that there is no way to control assisted suicide once you make it legal. There is no foolproof way to write the law without opening it to abuse. In Oregon and the Netherlands, for example, assisted suicide laws require two physicians to “sign off” on a suicide. However, some doctors “sign off” routinely without examining patients. One Dutch doctor hurried up a suicide because he needed the bed for another patient. You can’t write a law that covers every contingency so there’s no way to control what happens to your patients once you open that door.

Oregon and the Netherlands, where assisted suicide is legal, keep expanding it. This passage, written by Dr. Herbert Hendin in Psychiatric Times, sums up what’s happened in the Netherlands:
“The Netherlands has moved from assisted suicide to euthanasia, from euthanasia for the terminally ill to euthanasia for the chronically ill, from euthanasia for physical illness to euthanasia for psychological distress and from voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia (called “termination of the patient without explicit request”).” The Dutch now end the lives of psychiatric patients and deformed babies. In Oregon, medical systems are already offering people assisted suicide in lieu of chemotherapy. Cancer victim Randy Stroup got a letter from the state saying it would pay for his assisted suicide or painless death, but not his chemotherapy.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/4736927/Right-to-die-can-become-a-duty-to-die.html]

Today’s AD-Assisted suicide laws removes incentive to do medical research. If cancer patients routinely kill themselves rather than undergo treatment, you have removed a reason to perform medical research to cure cancer. Research scientists receive funding based on how much money illnesses are costing insurance companies and how many people suffer from them. If an illness is rare, it gets less funding.

If you don't mind people going abroad then what's the problem with allowing it in this country? If these other countries can control it, why wouldn't we be able to?

There are a multitude of sensible and compassionate objections to assisted suicide. The 'idiots' and 'morons' in this debate are those who are unwilling to cast even a cursory glance over the benefits and drawbacks of each side of the argument, or are just too stupid to be able to comprehend them. I had the same mindset at school but in growing up I have realised that the world is far more complex than either allowing terminally ill people of sound mind to end their lives before chronic pain gets them and being a heartless bastard.

Some tidbits from the interwebs:

My paternal grandmother has friends who are making arrangements to travel to Switzerland in the not so distant future. Apparently there are teams of psychiatrists etc who make thorough checks before proceeding. It seems to me that once that has been guaranteed, that takes away a great deal of the objections people seem to have.

Extremely glad that the Scottish parliament rejected this and actually somewhat surprised.

Why? Have the SNP actually passed any ground breaking legislation?

I do mind people going abroad, i find the idea immoral. But, the question is whether there's anything to be gained from putting the brother who went with them in prison for 3 years rather than giving them a large fine or community service.

I do mind people going abroad, i find the idea immoral. But, the question is whether there's anything to be gained from putting the brother who went with them in prison for 3 years rather than giving them a large fine or community service.

Can I ask have you ever seen a loved one wear away until they're skin and bones? Have you ever seen them live in constant pain and suffering to the point where life to them becomes a curse? Imagien finding out you had a degenerate disease where you would eventually enter into a vegetative state.

I find your views quite insensitive. Why shouldn't someone be allowed to die with dignity? Why shouldn't one be allowed to leave this world with comfort and grace rather than die with immense suffering?

Shame on you.

Just seems like something they'd support.