Margo MacDonald has done a very brave thing
Margo MacDonald has done a very brave thing by Alice Watson, Friends at the End, for the Edinburgh Evening News, dated 31 Mar 08 commenting that Margo MacDonald, MSP, is right to ask for assistance to die peacefully, though at present assisting a suicide is almost certainly illegal in Scotland.
Margo MacDonald has done a very brave thing
From Alice Watson, Friends at the End, for Edinburgh Evening News, 31 March 2008
I think Margo MacDonald has done a very brave thing. She is right to ask for assistance to die peacefully, though at present assisting a suicide is almost certainly illegal in Scotland. As suicide has never been mentioned in Scots law, nobody is sure what would happen to them if they openly helped somebody to die.
The right to die at a time of one's choosing is surely a basic human right. One can decide whether or not to conceive a child, whether or not to give birth to that child, whether to get married or not, but the last choice of all - to die peacefully at a time of one's choosing - is denied us.
Any law must carry many safeguards, of course. A person must be terminally ill, that is they must have a condition for which there is no cure, and their death should be expected within a time limit of, say, six months which must be certified by two doctors. They must make the choice while they are fully able to understand what they are asking, and they must ask several times. They must also be free of any outside pressure.
Palliative care is undoubtedly a wonderful service and comes into operation when a person very near death is given terminal sedation, so that they die without consciousness. But some illnesses last a long time, and the person does not wish to go through a, sometimes long-drawn out, time of pain and distress which can last months. Why should not anybody be able to say "Stop, enough"? Legalised assisted-suicide should always be an option within good palliative care.
If one is to end one's life alone, one must be physically able to do so. Sadly, people therefore kill themselves when they still have a long time to live. If their muscles are atrophying, or if they are losing the ability to swallow, they end their lives while they still have the capacity to so do, thus depriving themselves and their families of perhaps very tender and loving months of life.
Friends at the End is a Scottish society working towards getting the law changed here. Jeremy Purvis MSP brought a draft Bill to the Scottish Parliament in 2005 which was a thoroughly researched document, after he examined the situations in both Netherlands and the state of Oregon, USA, where assisted suicide is legal. In both cases the law works extremely well and there is absolutely no "slippery slope". In Oregon, patients who qualify are given a prescription, which they keep until life becomes intolerable and they get the medication when they are ready. Many patients never get the prescription filled and they eventually die a comfortable natural death - but the knowledge that they could end their life at any time is a comfort. Mr Purvis was not able to get a sufficient backing from fellow MSPs to take his Bill further, but I sincerely hope that he will try again.
In the meantime, people in a situation like Margo MacDonald's have to jump off a tall building, or undertake the strenuous and bureaucratic journey to Dignitas in Switzerland. I hope that the law will be changed so that she can have a peaceful end at her time of choice. This is a question of personal autonomy, after all.
From Alice Watson, Friends at the End, for Edinburgh Evening News, 31 March 2008
Margo MacDonald has done a very brave thing
From Alice Watson, Friends at the End, for Edinburgh Evening News, 31 March 2008
I think Margo MacDonald has done a very brave thing. She is right to ask for assistance to die peacefully, though at present assisting a suicide is almost certainly illegal in Scotland. As suicide has never been mentioned in Scots law, nobody is sure what would happen to them if they openly helped somebody to die.
The right to die at a time of one's choosing is surely a basic human right. One can decide whether or not to conceive a child, whether or not to give birth to that child, whether to get married or not, but the last choice of all - to die peacefully at a time of one's choosing - is denied us.
Any law must carry many safeguards, of course. A person must be terminally ill, that is they must have a condition for which there is no cure, and their death should be expected within a time limit of, say, six months which must be certified by two doctors. They must make the choice while they are fully able to understand what they are asking, and they must ask several times. They must also be free of any outside pressure.
Palliative care is undoubtedly a wonderful service and comes into operation when a person very near death is given terminal sedation, so that they die without consciousness. But some illnesses last a long time, and the person does not wish to go through a, sometimes long-drawn out, time of pain and distress which can last months. Why should not anybody be able to say "Stop, enough"? Legalised assisted-suicide should always be an option within good palliative care.
If one is to end one's life alone, one must be physically able to do so. Sadly, people therefore kill themselves when they still have a long time to live. If their muscles are atrophying, or if they are losing the ability to swallow, they end their lives while they still have the capacity to so do, thus depriving themselves and their families of perhaps very tender and loving months of life.
Friends at the End is a Scottish society working towards getting the law changed here. Jeremy Purvis MSP brought a draft Bill to the Scottish Parliament in 2005 which was a thoroughly researched document, after he examined the situations in both Netherlands and the state of Oregon, USA, where assisted suicide is legal. In both cases the law works extremely well and there is absolutely no "slippery slope". In Oregon, patients who qualify are given a prescription, which they keep until life becomes intolerable and they get the medication when they are ready. Many patients never get the prescription filled and they eventually die a comfortable natural death - but the knowledge that they could end their life at any time is a comfort. Mr Purvis was not able to get a sufficient backing from fellow MSPs to take his Bill further, but I sincerely hope that he will try again.
In the meantime, people in a situation like Margo MacDonald's have to jump off a tall building, or undertake the strenuous and bureaucratic journey to Dignitas in Switzerland. I hope that the law will be changed so that she can have a peaceful end at her time of choice. This is a question of personal autonomy, after all.
From Alice Watson, Friends at the End, for Edinburgh Evening News, 31 March 2008