Health budget rationing could open door for new era of ‘a life unworthy of a life’

You report on 20 April that MSPS are “moving towards backing right to die law” and Alex Cole-hamilton, MSP, states “as a parliament we are on the wrong side of history”.

I would suggest all the MSPS read Death and Deliverance by Michael Burleigh, which documents the origins of euthanasia after the First World War in Germany which led to the Nazi gas chambers.

In the 1920s after the Treaty of Versailles there was a lack of money for health care in Germany. The doctors in charge of the psychiatric hospitals were faced with care rationing decisions. They came up with the value judgment of “a life unworthy of a life”. This got mixed up in eugenics, and children with heritable disabilities were euthanised without their parents’ knowledge.

Dr Johann Asperger, who described autism, has recently been shown to have supported these policies.

In modern liberal society, history can often repeat itself in different forms. Modern slavery is the same principle but a modern expression of man’s inhumanity to man.

In Scotland today we have rationing of healthcare and many vulnerable people. Once we normalise assisted suicide and cross the medical Rubicon, the practice becomes routine and boundaries become fudged.

“Capacity” is notoriously difficult to judge in individuals with learning difficulty, dementia, neurological and mental illness. “Capacity” fluctuates with infection, physiology and situation.

We are moving to the situation where all older adults are being asked to “award capacity” by power of attorney to family members or third parties in anticipation of dementia and frailty.

How should we deal with young people who are suicidal and judged to have full capacity? Would three documented attempts mean that doctors would have to stand back on the fourth occasion and a clear expression of intent?

Assisted suicide asserts the selected, distressed, individual’s right to die over society’s duties to protect the vulnerable. It is the duty of the Scottish Parliament to consider the whole of society, including the vulnerable. The lesson of history is that my profession got this wrong 100 years ago with judgments of “a life unworthy of a life” during austerity and then assisting in Auschwitz.

Doctors clearly got Stephen Hawkins’ life expectancy wrong 50 years ago.

Epigenetics is the science of genes and the environment which will predict future burdens on society. On the one hand we have the Scottish Parliament advocating for minorities and difference. On the other, their intended actions will threaten to open the door for a new era of “a life unworthy of a life” to deal with budget rationing.

(DR) JAMES DOUGLAS Seafield Gardens, Fort William It is encouraging to read that moves are afoot in the Scottish Parliament to bring our law more in line with public opinion on this issue.

We need to be able to help people who have persistently requested assistance to die, not only those who can be conveniently labelled as terminally ill but also those who are enduring an incurable condition, causing hopeless and unbearable suffering with no reasonable alternative to relieve it.

Their numbers are growing as more people survive into their nineties with a very poor quality of life, propped up by routine modern medication.

JUDITH FLINN The Lane, Skelmorlie