Scotland: MSPs take evidence on End of Life Assistance Bill

Description: [of the article from the BBC News]

This report begins: Independent MSP Margo MacDonald, who has Parkinson's disease, brought the bill to make it legal for someone to seek help to end their life. A special Holyrood committee is spending the next few weeks questioning a wide range of witnesses on the End of Life Assistance Bill. The proposals will face their first parliamentary vote in November.

Ms MacDonald's bill would allow people whose lives become intolerable through a progressive degenerative condition, a trauma or terminal illness to seek a doctor's help in dying. It also proposes a series of safeguards which would prevent abuse of the legislation.

Dr Rob Jonquiere, a GP who has carried out assisted suicide in the Netherlands, where the practice was legalised in 2001, said the law had not led to a "slippery slope" in the number of people asking to die. And he told MSPs a request for assisted death was the "most difficult request you ever get".

"Everybody is afraid, even the doctor is afraid that he will terminate the life of a person who actually may be better tomorrow," said Dr Rob Jonquiere, now communications director of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies. "It is not a decision that you take on the spur of the moment." He added: "With euthanasia, you fill your needle with medication which will stop the life. "You give the medication and every doctor, every time, wants to the look the patient in his eye, and at that moment say 'is this really what you want?' "If they say yes, he will give it and the patient dies at your needle."

Also giving evidence, clinical ethics expert Dr Georg Bosshard said a "clear majority" of people in most European countries supported legal assisted suicide.

[Note: This web page also contains a 2.5 hour video of the testimony.]

[There is information in the Notes section below.]
[There are other related stories in the Links section below.]

Links:

To read the full article click on one of these links, both of which go to the same destination. A short link is provided for the convenience of readers. Also, readers may search and browse past and future advisories on the web (see bottom.)

  • http://tinyurl.com/2v3ljdl

  • http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/uk-scotland-11203010

    Also see:

  • Scotland: Is there such a thing as a "good death"? It is time we found out [The Herald]
    http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/vicky-allan/is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-good-death-it-is-time-we-found-out-1.1052849

    Vicky Allan writes about the issue being examined by the Scottish Parliament. An extract:

    On Tuesday, a Scottish Parliament committee will begin taking evidence on Margo MacDonald's End Of Life Assistance Bill, which I hope will signal the beginning of a discussion in our society on a issue that has long been blanked: whether we can and should aspire towards providing a good death for all. The words we use in this debate count because they are so highly emotive.

    When we talk about assisted suicide, we are already in sensationalist territory, the drama pumped up high in the battle between life, which has to be adhered to at all costs, and death. Talk, however, about euthanasia and the debate already seems more gentle. Meaning as it does "good death", the term seems more appropriate here, where it's not so much about the cutting off of one's own life but about making a decent and dignified passage out of it. We all agree that we need to protect the vulnerable, but currently it seems we are all vulnerable to the savageries of a health system that revolves around eking out every last minute of life.

    For most people the idea of a good death has several issues attached to it: the place of end-of-life care and death, what kind of pain they will experience and whether they go having made their peace with people they love. In surveys, the majority say they would like to die at home and most would like to die in their sleep.

Source:

"MSPs take evidence on End of Life Assistance Bill". BBC News. 7 September 2010 Last updated at 11:47 ET. <www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/uk-scotland-11203010>. BBC News, Television Centre, Wood Lane, London W12 7RJ.

Tags:

Tags (or keywords) briefly indicate some major topics of the report.

  • Margo MacDonald

  • Rob Jonquiere

  • World Federation of Right to Die Societies

  • public hearings

  • End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill (SP Bill 38)

  • Scotland

  • Britain

Notes:

Other stories on the Pending Advisories page include:

  • The lawsuit against a Toronto hospital that claims doctors secretly placed a DNR order on a patient's chart, and ignored the health proxy's at-the-scene instructions to attempt resuscitation. Professor Thaddeus Pope says that, if the allegations are true, it is as bad as it looks.

  • The start of the Australian right-to-die television advertising campaign of Exit International.

  • Libby Wilson comments on the arrest the two friends of Douglas Sinclair on their return from Dignitas.

  • Derek Humphry's update on the availability of lethal drugs.

ID:

The EuthaNEWSia ID for this advisory is: enid201009079226.
Mailed: Tuesday, September 7, 2010 14:22:51 -0600
at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Etcetera:

EuthaNEWSia is a free Canadian news advisory service covering end-of-life issues such as right to die, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. EuthaNEWSia is produced by the Right to Die Society of Canada which works toward a good death for all, including open, regulated and equitable access to euthanasia and assisted suicide. The editor is Michael Dawson <editor@euthanewsia.ca>. 

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