No room for error in life and death issue

THE agony of the terminally ill, facing months or years of painful decline, cannot be overstated – and the impact on relatives and friends is profound.

Their plight is the motivation for a new Bill which proposes that people as young as 16 should be able to ask doctors to help them end their lives.

It is inarguable that the planned legislation is well-intentioned – and driven by compassion for those who long for an end to their suffering.

Dame Esther Rantzen, who is herself a member of Dignitas – having been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer – argues that the current law is ‘cruel’ and ‘complicated’.

But there is a risk of opening a Pandora’s Box by pushing forward with such a radical change, and the possible repercussions must be closely examined.

In financially straitened times, would patients feel forced into ending their lives early? Campaigners warn that the ‘right to die’ could become a ‘duty to die’ for those who believe themselves to be a ‘burden’ on their family, or the NHS.

And it isn’t hard to imagine someone cynically in pursuit of an inheritance putting pressure on their sick relative to consider assisted dying.

True, safeguards are built into the plans which would require two doctors to assess clinical condition and mental competence.

Whether these measures are robust enough to prevent coercion is an important question that must be addressed as MSPs consider the Bill. There is also genuine concern that suicide will be ‘normalised’ – and that an assisted dying law would stoke discrimination against people with disabilities.

In Canada, where assisted dying was legalised in 2016, some doctors say they have seen a disturbing change in the way disabled people are treated by the medical establishment.

Right-to-die in Canada was initially limited to those who are terminally ill and whose deaths were ‘reasonably foreseeable’ – but this was later extended to include people with chronic illnesses and disabled people with years left to live.

There are also plans – now delayed until 2027 – for the programme to be extended to those who are mentally ill.

The number of medically assisted deaths in Canada has risen significantly – from 1,018 in 2016 to more than 13,241 in 2022.

In some high-profile cases, campaigners claim that Canadians with treatable illnesses have been prescribed death by lethal injection. Is this the fate that could lie in store for Scotland if Liam McArthur’s Assisted Dying Bill were to be approved?

And there is another option for those who are in pain and nearing the end of their lives.

Palliative care is a crucial yet often overlooked and underfunded service. Highly trained hospice staff administering powerful medication can ease the suffering of the terminally ill in their last days and weeks.

Mr McArthur’s Bill is the fourth attempt to legalise assisted dying in Scotland, after three previous attempts failed to secure enough support.

MSPs are expected to be given a free vote on it – and the proposals must be subject to careful scrutiny and rigorous debate.

Doubtless most of them will take this task seriously – yet a slew of botched laws, from Named Person to the rescinded ban on sectarian chanting at football matches, proves our MSPs can get it badly wrong.

Too many times – on transgender reforms and the current Hate Crime Act – critics have been demonised and their words of warning ignored.

On assisted dying, there is no margin for error: the stakes are simply too high, for the families affected – and for wider society.