Response to the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill
Short Survey - Call for Views (Submitted 15 August 2024).


What is your name?  John Ling.

What is your email address?  john@johnling.co.uk

Are you responding as an individual or on behalf of an organization?  Individual.

Do you live in Scotland?  No.

Which of the following best reflects your views on the Bill?  Strongly oppose.

Which of the following factors are most important to you when considering the issue of assisted dying?  Please rank up to three options.
1]  Risk of eligibility being broadened and safeguards reduced over time.
2]  Impact on healthcare professionals and the doctor/patient relationship.
3]  Risk of devaluing lives of vulnerable groups.

Do you have any other comments on the Bill?  Please use this textbox to provide your answer:
Tough safeguards cannot be written down in law - eligibility criteria always expand.  Think historically of the Netherlands and Belgium, now Canada is the world's
fastest-growing assisted suicide jurisdiction.  Who is next, Scotland?

Legalizing assisted dying will wreck the medical/healthcare professions.  The role of doctors will shift from life healers to life terminators.  Moreover, the historic patient-doctor relationship of trust and respect would end.  That would be grotesque.

The vulnerable would be at extra risk.  Palliative care, the great compassionate alternative to assisted dying, would be withheld on grounds of cost, value
and utility.  The disabled would be pushed to the front of the queue.

Scotland, like every other country, does not require assisted dying.  Its support is driven by a false view of compassion and autonomy.   Legalizing it would be a callous blot on Scottish medical history.


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