More Britons signing up for Swiss ‘suicide tourism’
DIGNITAS membership in the UK soared last year as a poll showed the majority of Scots support assisted dying.
There were 1,900 registered British members of the Swiss-based euthanasia clinic in 2023, a rise of 372 on the previous year, according to figures. Also last year, Dignitas disclosed 40 UK residents travelled to its clinic to die.
The UK ranked second behind Germany both in the number of its nationals registered as members and the total number of people who have died at Dignitas.
A total of 1,454 travelled from Germany, while there were 571 from the UK and 549 from France. The figures cover 1998 to 2023. It comes as a poll published by the Dignity in Dying campaign group released ahead of the Assisted Dying Bill found that 78 per cent of respondents in Scotland supported making assisted dying lawful, while 15 per cent opposed it.
Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur said earlier this week he is ‘absolutely convinced’ that his Bill will be passed, despite repeated attempts to change the law previously being rejected by MSPs. The poll, conducted for campaigners by Opinium, surveyed 4,132 Scottish adults between February 9 and March 15 and found support for the legislation in every Holyrood constituency.
But Dr Calum MacKellar, director of research at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics (SCHB), said: ‘The Scottish parliament should reject the dangerous concept of a “life unworthy of life” associated to assisted suicide, which is a notion that should never be accepted in a civilised society.’
The group claimed allowing assisted suicide in the Netherlands had led to some cases of
people seeking to use the powers because they are ‘tired of life’.
Dr MacKellar said: ‘The SCHB agrees that the concept of autonomy is extremely important in medicine but there are times when the inherent value and worth of all human life, at whatever stage, must take priority over autonomy for a civilised society to survive.
‘It is inevitable that assisted suicide would put the most vulnerable people in Scotland under pressure to end their lives because they are afraid of being a burden.’ MSPs are expected to get a free vote on the legislation, although Humza Yousaf has previously spoken of his own opposition to assisted dying.
Dr Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing, said last night: ‘There are dangers of creating an environment where elderly and vulnerable people are put at risk and routinely expected to die without adequate scrutiny of medical decision-making. People don’t want that.’