{"id":23204,"date":"2026-03-21T04:20:38","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T04:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=23204"},"modified":"2026-03-21T04:20:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T04:20:38","slug":"scotlands-assisted-suicide-vote-a-temporary-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=23204","title":{"rendered":"Scotland\u2019s assisted suicide vote: a temporary victory?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n \u00a0(Photo: Pexels\/Rawpixels)<\/span><\/p>\n

In a surprising move, the Scottish Parliament this week voted to reject assisted suicide. And it wasn\u2019t even close \u2013 57 for and 69 against, with every party except the Lib Dems and the Greens having a majority voting against. Why did this happen? Especially when at the first two stages of the bill it comfortably passed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And therein lies the answer. As MSPs got to look more closely at what was involved, they realised that the bill itself was badly worded and had insurmountable difficulties \u2013 like compelling staff and organisations who did not want to participate in \u2018mercy killing\u2019 to do so.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like the threat of people feeling coerced. The bill would have made the treatment available to terminally ill, mentally competent adults who have been given less than six months to live – but opponents said there were not enough protections against coercion.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like the government admitting that money would have to be taken from other frontline NHS services to provide for assisted suicide.\u00a0 The irony of taking money from the sick in order to kill people was not lost on some MSPs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The level of propaganda and money behind the pro-assisted suicide people (someone should ask where all this money comes from \u2013 enabling massive ads in newspapers during the campaign?) means that it is not surprising that opinion polls show that the majority of the public seem to support assisted suicide \u2013 although it all depends on the question asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you ask \u2018would you prefer your granny to have a nice peaceful, pain-free death at the time and place of her own choosing, or to die in agony?\u2019, then it is little wonder that the majority say yes. But if you ask \u2018do you think more money should be spent on palliative care and doctors avoid being involved in killing people?\u2019, you will get a different answer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The trouble with the vox pop type of opinion polls is that they do not go into the complexities of the issues involved. When MSPs had the opportunity, they saw the difficulties and turned away from them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

You would hope as Dr Gordon Macdonald, CEO of Care Not Killing, stated \u201cthat we must improve palliative care in Scotland in the future \u2026 No one should have to suffer a painful death, and we have to invest in palliative care services to ensure that everyone has dignity at the end of life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see if the Scottish government goes down this route or whether we just wait until the bill is resurrected in another form. The journalist Kevin McKenna writing in the Herald was scathing: \u201cDo you really think that the\u00a0Scottish Greens\u00a0and the\u00a0SNP\u00a0will spend money on helping those at the end of their lives? Behave yourselves. Assisted Dying was always an attractive, cost-effective alternative than having to spend money on people they loathed when they were in good health.\u201d<\/p>\n

The BBC, with its usual partiality, reported it as a missed opportunity and treated the bill\u2019s proposer Liam McArthur as though he was some kind of victim. They failed to mention that McArthur\u2019s bill was prepared to close down Catholic hospices rather than let them opt out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another commentator, Iain Macwhirter, noted the contribution of two disabled MSPs: \u201cThe Independent MSP Jeremy Balfour warned that disabled people were \u2018terrified\u2019 that they might be subtly induced to seek assisted dying in order to relieve the \u2018burden\u2019 on family and health services. The ex-Labour MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy MBE, speaking from her wheelchair, made a passionate case against \u2018choosing to make it easier to live than to die\u2019. Most of the supporters of the bill argued for personal choice. But what choice did the elderly and disabled really have when social care, palliative care and disabled facilities are so inadequate?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

From a Christian perspective this is good news \u2013 the Roman Catholic church, Free Church of Scotland, Baptist Union and Evangelical alliance were all strongly opposed. The Church of Scotland was officially opposed but allowed \u2018diversity\u2019. Only the Scottish Episcopalian Church was in favour.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But although this was good news for the elderly, poor, sick and disabled in Scotland, it may only be a stay of execution. Like the Terminator, the bill will be back! Despite Alex Cole-Hamilton, the Lib Dem leader, saying that \u201cthis is the moment of final decision\u2019, because the decision did not go their way. As one supporter put it: “We only have to win the argument once.\u201d Why? Do they not think it is possible to reverse a bad law?\u00a0<\/p>\n

This indicates how \u2018progressivism\u2019 works. They keep pushing and pushing until a permissive law is passed. Then that law becomes an irreversible basic \u2018human right\u2019 which can never be changed. What gets me is that despite the fact that the Scottish Parliament has debated euthanasia three times and three times has rejected it, the ‘progressives’ are so sure of their doctrines that they will just keep bringing it back until they get their way. They despise democracy.<\/p>\n

Some argued that this was a great debate \u2013 showing the benefits of informed discussion at this level. There were a few excellent speeches, including that of Humza Yousaf, the former First Minister who spoke clearly against, but I am more inclined towards the opinion of Kevin McKenna: \u201cLet\u2019s be honest here: there was little that was uplifting about this at all. It was a sickening display of narcissistic exceptionalism. A cohort of affluent, middle-class actors seeking group hugs and sympathy by weaponising the deaths of their loved ones to make a bad law that would principally target those with none of their choices and privileges.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Again, I have noted a pattern here: people congratulate themselves on a respectful and good debate \u2013 but keep going until they get what they want. And then all respect is thrown out of the window.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The uncomfortable truth is that this victory may only be temporary.\u00a0 The principle of assisted suicide was supported in the first two stages but the bill itself was a badly worded, hubristic piece of legislation. Until the foundations of Scottish society return to its Christian roots, I suspect that this reprieve may only last for a short time.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0(Photo: Pexels\/Rawpixels) In a surprising move, the Scottish Parliament this week voted to reject assisted suicide. And it wasn\u2019t even close \u2013 57 for and 69 against, with every party except the Lib Dems and the Greens having a majority voting against. Why did this happen? Especially when at the first two stages of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[848,7701,849,7022,1524,2373],"class_list":{"0":"post-23204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-christian-living","8":"tag-assisted","9":"tag-scotlands","10":"tag-suicide","11":"tag-temporary","12":"tag-victory","13":"tag-vote"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}