MSPs weigh up matter of life and death
Kevin Sutherland is a 31-year- old man who wants to end his own life with dignity due to the mental health problems he is suffering .
It’s a hard expression of a personal truth to get your head around.
But that’s what he has decided he wants to do after visiting an assisted dying clinic in Belgium.
The story of this young man from Edinburgh brings back to the fore the assisted dying debate that has been rumbling on in the background in the Scottish Parliament.
A bill from Lib Dem Liam McArthur is the third attempt to bring the sensitive and serious subject before Holyrood.
Those in favour of it hope to change the law so people do not have to travel abroad to foreign clinics in order to take their lives medically.
While many people will be undecided on their views of assisted suicide, most people can understand the desperation of someone who has a terminal physical illness or disease.
Parkinson’s, cancer or the myriad of other life-limiting conditions are not only tragic for those who suffer from them but for their friends and family who may have to watch as they deteriorate.
Some people who choose to end their own lives by visiting overseas facilities simply do not want to put their relatives through the burden of having to watch, helpless, as they go through this process.
While others do not want to put themselves through excruciating pain or suffer a loss of independence as their conditions develop.
Kevin believes his mental health condition is terminal and feels he cannot live with it.
And at the same time he wants to make the decision about his life, and his death, by himself.
Rightly there is a greater focus now on mental illness and people with it live in hope that they will begin to feel better and their burdens will be eased.
The pain of mental illness may be just as diff icult as that of a terminal physical condition for those experiencing it.
Comparing the two is an almost impossible task but Kevin’s story shows that it will need to be discussed by MSPs as our parlimanent takes on one of its biggest challenges yet.