Scottish Proposal Would Ban Assisted Suicide Prevention

This article was published by National Review online on October 31, 2025.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

Assisted suicide is not legal in Scotland — I have traveled there three times to fight that agenda — but it is a looming threat again. And now, an amendment to the legalization bill has been proposed that would prohibit prevention efforts at or near places where suicidal people’s lives would be ended. From the ADF International press release:

A Scottish parliamentarian and member of the Health Committee, Patrick Harvie MSP, has proposed an amendment to Scotland’s controversial “assisted suicide” bill that would criminalise discussion of suicide prevention within a large, undefined public area surrounding any building where an assisted suicide might take place.

The vague proposal would forbid any attempts to “influence” a person’s decision to undergo an assisted suicide, such as through conversation with a family member or the display of a suicide prevention poster.

Holy cow! Is Scottish nihilism so thick that it would actually criminalize efforts to save lives? We’ll see. But I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, as advocates oppose the right of medical conscience that would allow professionals to opt out of all complicity in killing patients or assisting their suicides.

Also, this would seem to imply that there will be assisted suicide clinics. And indeed, there is a “MAID house” in Canada where patients go to be killed.

What a world, what a world.