Political rivals unite in letter opposing calls to legalise assisted suicide

MSPS from across the political spectrum have joined together to oppose efforts to legalise assisted suicide.

Figures including the Scottish Conservatives’ Murdo Fraser, the SNP’S John Mason, Labour’s Elaine Smith and six others signed a letter printed ina Sunday newspaper stating that “society should be preventing suicide, not assisting it”.

They said legalising assisted suicide would be the measure of a “desperately cold, soulless society”.

It comes after a group of nine cross-party politicians including acting Scottish Tory leader Jackson Carlaw, former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale and Scottish Green co-convener Patrick Harvie, wrote to the same newspaper last week to support a change in the law.

In their letter opposing the idea, the MSPS wrote: “Have we really become a society that says the best answer we can provide to those suffering in end-of-life situations is to help them kill themselves? Is that really all we can offer?

“That, to us, is the measure of a desperately cold, soulless society. We think that in Scotland today we are better than that.”

They add: “It has been said thatlegalisingassistedsuicide means the whole of society, and not only the person wanting to die, is accepting that a person has lost all value, worth and meaning in life.

“We believe that this would have a damaging effect on society, and dangerously undermine the legal protection established in the concept of equal and inherent human dignity.”

The other signatories are Conservatives Jeremy Balfour, Donald Cameron and Gordon Lindhurst, Liberal Democrat Mike Rumbles and Neil Bibby and Mark Griffin, both of the Scottish Labour Party.

Previous attempts to change the law on assisted dying in Scotland have failed.

Campaigners want the Scottish Parliament to legislate to allow terminally ill, mentally competent adults to have the choice of an assisted death.

A poll published late last week found that nearly nine in ten people in Scotland support legalising assisted dying.

The Populus survey, commissioned by campaign group Dignity in Dying Scotland, found 87 per cent backed the move for terminally ill people who had been given less than six months to live, with the proviso that there was medical approval and various safeguards.

Eight per cent of people were opposed, while the remainder of those surveyed said they did not know.