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Pro-life campaign group Care Not Killing has urged supporters to terminate assisted suicide as a political issue in the upcoming elections for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and many English councils.
The Scottish assisted suicide bill has already been defeated, while the Westminster bill has been described as dead in the water even by supporters of the controversial measure.
Despite this, Care Not Killing has warned that following the elections, there could be attempts to resurrect the bill in Scotland.
Care Not Killing noted that in Scotland, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Alex Cole-Hamilton, has already indicated that he would like to reintroduce some form of assisted suicide legislation.
In England, Lord Falconer, who was the sponsor for the Westminster bill in the House of Lords, has been attempting to get some form of assisted suicide legislation on the books since 2009, when he tried to pass an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill, a move that would have removed sanctions from helping others commit suicide abroad. The current bill is his seventh attempt to pass some form of assisted suicide legislation.
Gordon Macdonald, Chief Executive of Care Not Killing, said that supporters of the various pieces of legislation had failed to address concerns that people could be coerced into assisted suicide.
“Cole-Hamilton has produced no solutions to those challenges and it’s irresponsible for him to cause many disabled and vulnerable people huge anxiety by suggesting another assisted suicide bill without providing any answers to the real concerns they have expressed regarding assisted suicide,” he told The Scotsman.
Macdonald urged supporters to make their opposition to assisted suicide known to those standing for the upcoming elections and to vote accordingly.
The stakes are highest in the Scottish Parliament elections, but the Welsh Assembly also has a voice on the issue and could signal its disapproval of an assisted suicide law passed in Westminster. English councils, meanwhile, are responsible for social care, an issue closely linked to the question of end-of-life care.
