Scotland is being pressured to legalize assisted suicide. They need to care not kill.

Dr Gordon Macdonald, the parliamentary officer for Care for Scotland, wrote an excellent article that was published in the Scotsman on April 19, explaining why assisted suicide should not be legalised.

Dr Gordon Macdonald

Macdonald begins his article by discussing why the previous assisted suicide bill was defeated.

A new campaign has been launched in the ­Scottish Parliament by a ­cross-party group of MSPs to ­legalise assisted suicide. They plan to bring forward proposals for a new law before the next Scottish parliament election in 2021. 

The last time MSPs voted on the issue of assisted suicide in 2015, they rejected Patrick Harvie’s Assisted Suicide Bill by 82-36. It was a clear, ­comprehensive victory. If you listen back to the speeches made during that debate, it was clear that MSPs did not think the law could be made safe. 

Most members realised then that the risks of legalising assisted suicide were too high and would put vulnerable people at risk of harm. 

But pro-assisted suicide advocates, including a few MSPs, are determined to change the law in Scotland. The well-funded, London–based campaign group Dignity in Dying are taking their campaign to ­Scotland. They are saying that if they can change the law in Scotland, it will put huge pressure on the rest of the United Kingdom to follow suit. They are fundraising so they can buy ­billboards, posters and placards in order to pressurise MSPs to change the law.

Macdonald argues that legalizing assisted suicide will affect their caring society

Scotland has a long and proud ­history as being a compassionate, caring society where we look after each other. Assisted suicide would undermine this heritage in a radical and unalterable way. 

It would also undermine palliative care, put vulnerable people at risk and put doctors in an invidious ­position. It would heap ­pressure on some of the most vulnerable in ­society to end their life, perhaps ­prematurely because they feel as though they are a burden to loved ones or caregivers. Such an outcome is unavoidable. Instead of encouraging suicide, we should be ­helping ­people to see that they are valuable and of worth to ­family, friends and society, even in old age or ­experiencing ill-health.

Macdonald then explains how assisted suicide laws have expanded in other jurisdictions:

When introduced, assisted suicide laws might be focused on a certain, set of circumstances. As time goes on, the categories of eligibility extend to include more and more people. It can quickly expand from the terminally ill to include those with chronic illnesses, but not terminal conditions; from adults to children; from those with physical illness to include those who have psychiatric and psychological problems and even dementia. 

There are proposals in some ­countries to extend laws to include elderly people who are just tired of life and suggestions that elderly ­people over a certain age should not get significant medical assistance if they are unwell. 

There is a case at the European Court on Human Rights where three doctors are being investigated after a 64-year-old Belgian ­woman in good health with depression was ­euthanised, despite there being no official diagnosis. Her son only found out about it when the ­hospital ­contacted him to arrange the ­disposal of her remains. 

In the USA there are instances of people been denied health insurance for cancer treatment whilst being offered funding to commit suicide. We would be naïve to assume that such cases will not also ­happen here.

Macdonald then explains why assisted suicide safeguards don't work:

It’s not good enough to talk about safeguards when the ­evidence ­suggests there is no way assisted ­suicide legislation could ever be made fully safe from abuse. Is this really the sort of society in which we want to live? In Scotland, our Christian tradition has left a legacy of concern for the most vulnerable and a sense of responsibility to look after those unable to care for themselves. 

Sadly, our culture too readily equates dependence and vulnerability with weakness. But being vulnerable helps us to realise our dependence upon other human beings.

Dr Gordon Macdonald has been a long-time promoter of the belief that society needs to care for its citizens, not kill.

Scotland may debate assisted suicide - again.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dr Gordon Macdonald
Care Not Killing Alliance

Scotland has had debated, in the past for years, bills to legalize euthanasia and all of them were defeated. The Scotsman is reporting that the Liberal Health spokesman, Alex Cole-Hamilton, is urging the Scottish parliament to establish another parliamentary inquiry into the issue. Cole-Hamilton believes that the new members of the Scottish parliament will vote differently on the issue.

The Scotsman reported that Bill Scott, of Inclusion Scotland, the national disabled people’s organisation, told MSPs:

“I would much rather this parliament talk about how we uphold the right to life.”

The last assisted suicide bill was defeated in May 2015 by a vote of 82 to 36.

The week before the vote the Care Not Killing Alliance - Scotland presented a petition of 15,300 people who oppose the assisted suicide bill.

British Medical Association (BMA) should reject latest attempt at neutrality on assisted suicide and euthanasia.

This article was published by Dr Peter Saunders on his blog on June 20, 2016.

Peter Saunders

By Dr Peter Saunders.

Tomorrow, 21 June, the Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) of the British Medical Association (BMA) will consider two motions on assisted suicide.

The BMA is the UK’s professional association and registered trade union for doctors and currently has170,000 members.

It has been opposed to the legalisation of assisted suicide and euthanasia for every year of its history with the exception of 2005-6 when it was neutral for just twelve months.

The first motion (79 on the agenda): affirms that: 

‘it is not appropriate at this time to debate whether or not to change existing BMA policy’.

Only if this is not passed will debate take place on the second motion (80): 

‘that this meeting believes that the BMA should adopt a neutral stance on assisted dying’.

A total of 29 motions were put forward on this issue – of which 21 upheld current BMA policy and only 8 opposed it; 27 motions did not make the cut of the agenda committee.

The use of the term ‘assisted dying’ is especially interesting as it is a form of words developed by the pro-euthanasia lobby that is vaguely defined and has no meaning in law. So it raises the question as to what the BMA would actually be going neutral on?

British parliaments have consistently resisted any move to legalise any form of assisted suicide or euthanasia. There have been a dozen unsuccessful attempts in the last twelve years. Last year the Marris Bill in the House of Commons and the Harvie Bill in the Scottish Parliament were defeated by 330-118 and 82-36 respectively.

The majority of doctors are opposed to a change in the law. Opinion polls show an average of 65% doctors opposing the legalisation of assisted suicide and/or euthanasia with the remainder undecided or in favour. The Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of General Practitioners and British Geriatrics Society are officially opposed.

82% of Association for Palliative Medicine members oppose a change in the law, with 72% saying a bill allowing assisted suicide even for imminently dying people would have an adverse effect on the delivery of palliative care. Amongst all doctors, these voices carry the greatest weight in this debate due to their understanding of the vulnerability of dying patients and their knowledge of treatments to alleviate their symptoms.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia are contrary to all historic codes of medical ethics, including the Hippocratic Oath, the Declaration of Geneva, the International Code of Medical Ethics and the Statement of Marbella. Neutrality would be a quantum change for the profession and against the international tide.

Furthermore, neutrality on this particular issue would give assisted suicide a status that no other issue enjoys. Doctors, quite understandably, are strongly opinionated and also have a responsibility to lead. The BMA is a democratic body which takes clear positions on a whole variety of health and health-related issues. Why should assisted suicide and euthanasia enjoy a position which no other issue shares, especially when doctors will actually be the ones carrying it out?

Furthermore, to drop medical opposition to the legalisation of assisted suicide and euthanasia at a time of economic austerity could be highly dangerous. Many families and the NHS itself are under huge financial strain and the pressure vulnerable people might face to end their lives so as not to be a financial (or emotional) burden on others is potentially immense.

Assisted Suicide bill defeated in Scotland by a 82 to 36 vote.

By Alex Schadenberg

International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Scottish assisted suicide bill was just defeated in parliament by a vote of 82 - 36.

The defeat of the assisted suicide bill was predicted by the Care Not Killing Alliance earlier in the week when they announced that 59 MSP's opposed the bill with another 17 MSP's leaning towards opposing the bill.

The day before the vote, Alison Britton, the convener of the Law Society's health and medical law committee in Scotland said that the assisted suicide bill lacked clarity and would be difficult to enforce. Britton stated:

We have said throughout the passage of this Bill that legislation in this area needs to be absolutely clear and those seeking to end their lives, and those who assist them, need a robust and transparent process to be certain under which conditions it would be lawful for assistance to be provided. 

We remain concerned over the lack of definition of the key terms, such as 'assistance' and 'life-shortening' and the functions of the licensed facilitator are still uncertain. 

Lack of such clarity leads to ambiguity and leaves the legislation open to interpretation.

Dr Gordon Macdonald

The week before the vote the Care Not Killing Alliance presented a petition of 15,300 people who oppose the assisted suicide bill.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition congratulates Dr Gordon Macdonald and all of the members of the Care Not Killing Alliance for effectively defeating this dangerous bill.

Assisted suicide is unethical and unsafe. It is wrong to give doctors, or others, the right in law to assist in causing the death of another person.

Law Society of Scotland rejects assisted suicide bill.

Alex Schadenberg

By Alex Schadenberg

International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The media is reporting that the Law Society of Scotland has joined the chorus of organizations that oppose the assisted suicide bill that will go to a vote tomorrow.

Alison Britton, the convener of the Law Society's health and medical law committee in Scotland said that the assisted suicide bill lacked clarity and would be difficult to enforce.

The media reported Britton as stating:

We have said throughout the passage of this Bill that legislation in this area needs to be absolutely clear and those seeking to end their lives, and those who assist them, need a robust and transparent process to be certain under which conditions it would be lawful for assistance to be provided. 

We remain concerned over the lack of definition of the key terms, such as 'assistance' and 'life-shortening' and the functions of the licensed facilitator are still uncertain. 

Lack of such clarity leads to ambiguity and leaves the legislation open to interpretation.

Dr Gordon Macdonald

Dr Gordon Macdonald from the Care Not Killing Alliance Scotland was reported as saying that the assisted suicide bill will likely be defeated.

Last week the Care Not Killing Alliance presented a petition to the Scottish parliament of 15,300 people who oppose the assisted suicide bill.

Assisted suicide is unethical and unsafe. It is wrong to give doctors, or others, the right in law to assist in causing the death of another person.

Scotland's assisted suicide bill will be defeated.

Alex Schadenberg

By Alex Schadenberg

International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Scottish media has reported that Scotland's poorly written and dangerous assisted suicide bill will be defeated on Wednesday. According to the Scottish Express, the Care Not Killing Alliance in Scotland has reported that:

...an analysis of voting intentions ... shows between 65 and 75 per cent of MSPs will reject Green co-convener Patrick Harvie’s proposals. 

Care Not Killing says 59 MSPs – including First Minister Nicola Sturgeon – have already decided to vote against the Assisted Suicide Bill. 

A further 17 are minded against, according to the group’s canvassing. Just 23 have confirmed they will vote for the new laws while a further seven are minded to vote for it, while 21 MSPs are either undecided, undeclared or will abstain.

Dr Gordon Macdonald

Earlier this month the Scottish government health committee rejected the assisted suicide bill because it has serious flaws.

Dr Gordon Macdonald, of Care Not Killing, said:

“The indications from this voting intentions exercise are that at present there could be anything from two-thirds to three-quarters of the chamber voting against the Bill. That is most encouraging but we don’t want to pre-judge anything and will await the decision of the MSPs.” 

“This has been a long, arduous and highly-charged campaign with powerful arguments being made. 

“However, we have said all along that assisted suicide is unnecessary, unethical and uncontrollable and that this Bill is flawed in principle.”

Last week the Care Not Killing Alliance presented a petition to the Scottish parliament of 15,300 people who oppose the assisted suicide bill. 

Assisted suicide is unethical and unsafe. It is simply wrong to give doctors, or others, the right in law to be involved with causing another person's death.

Care Not Killing Scotland presents petition rejecting assisted suicide bill

Alex Schadenberg

By Alex Schadenberg

International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Scottish media have reported that the Care Not Killing Alliance presented a petition with 15,300 signatures opposing the assisted suicide bill. The assisted suicide bill is scheduled to go to a vote next Wednesday in the Scottish parliament.

Last month the Scottish government health committee concluded that the assisted suicide bill contained "significant flaws" with the majority of the health committee opposed to the "general principles" of the bill. The committee stated that the assisted suicide bill lacked clarity in language and undermined suicide prevention efforts.

Dr Gordon Macdonald

According to The Extra:

Dr Gordon Macdonald, convenor of Care Not Killing, the campaign group opposed to assisted suicide, said he expected the Bill to be defeated when it is debated and voted on next week. 

Speaking as he handed over the group's petition, he said: "The Bill is wrong in principle, but it's also wrong in a lot of the detail, and I think that has become clear from a couple of the committees that have scrutinised it that that's the case. 

"We would argue that it should be rejected on a point of principle, but even for those who might be minded to support the principle, they should still vote against it because this Bill is so badly written." 

He added: "We have got a fairly good idea of what the Parliament thinks about this Bill and we would expect that it will be defeated next Wednesday."

The assisted suicide bill in Scotland will likely be defeated next Wednesday.

• Scottish assisted suicide bill must be rejected by parliament.

Scottish assisted suicide bill must be rejected by Parliament.

This article was published by Dr Peter Saunders on his blog.

By Dr Peter Saunders

A report by MSPs criticising the proposed assisted suicide Bill before Holyrood has been welcomed by campaigners opposing the legislation. 

The Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill, introduced by Green Party MSP Patrick Harvie, is due to have its first stage debate in the Scottish Parliament by the end of May.

On a raft of crucial matters the committee has revealed the Bill to be lacking and deeply flawed.

And while stopping short of recommending MSPs to throw out the Bill they have made their view clear that the majority of the Health and Sport Committee, which has been scrutinising the Bill, oppose it.

Dr Gordon Macdonald

Dr Gordon Macdonald of Care Not Killing  said,

‘This report confirms what we have said along. The Bill is poorly thought out, ill-conceived, badly-drafted and effectively not fit for purpose. We are delighted that the committee agrees with us that the Bill contains significant flaws which are likely to prevent it from being enacted. It is gratifying to note a majority of the committee is against the Bill although they have not made a formal recommendation to the Parliament to reject the Bill.’

Catherine Garrod

Catherine Garrod, Edinburgh Disability Rights Campaigner speaking on behalf of Not Dead Yet, another campaign group opposing the Bill, said: 

‘Disabled people oppose assisted suicide because it gives the message that our lives are not worth living. Disabled people want assistance to live, investment in health and social care, good palliative care, support for independent living and the right to equality not assisted suicide.’

Care Not Killing is strongly opposed to legalising assisted suicide and firmly believes life should be protected and palliative care prioritised. It represents more than 40 professional groups, faith groups, human rights groups, medical professionals, palliative care specialists and legal experts who are convinced it would be dangerous and unnecessary to decriminalise the existing law on homicide.

Dr Macdonald said. 

‘We do not want the state-sanctioned killing of old, ill and disabled people of all impairment. 

‘We want support for people to live - not to die. In recent weeks as the Bill has been scrutinised we have witnessed repeated and sustained criticism  from a variety of sources and for a range of reasons because it is so badly drafted - leading experts in medicine and palliative care, senior lawyers and experienced ethicists who all express serious and genuine concerns. And more than 15,000 members of the public have signed our petition. 

‘We have always maintained that assisted suicide is unnecessary, unethical and uncontrollable. This is compounded by the fact that this is a weakly thought-out and poorly-written Bill. The numbers of people who have criticised whole parts of it, quite aside from any moral or ethical objections, highlight the problems with the legislation.’

The Bill calls for the creation of  ‘licensed facilitators’ - aged as young as 16 - who would assist individuals end their life and would remain close by until such times and even film the scene as the individual dies or decides not to proceed with the assisted suicide.

In effect, the Scottish Government is being asked to fund and train licensed killers to preside over the suicide deaths of teenagers as young as 16.

Assisted suicide is an assault on dignity

The article was published on February 5, 2015 by the Scotsman news.

Calum MacKellar

By Dr Calum MacKellar, the director of research at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics

With the Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill currently being discussed in the Scottish Parliament, it has become necessary to seek to understand, unpack and define one of the most contested themes being used by both sides of the debate; namely the concept of human dignity.

Double assisted suicide of elderly cousins, based on fear of living alone.

By Alex Schadenberg

International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Telegraph UK news reported on the assisted suicide deaths of Scottish cousins, Stuart Henderson (86) and Phyllis McConachie (89), who had lived together for 40 years and feared living alone. They died at a suicide clinic in Basel Switzerland.

They were not sick or terminally ill, they were older and feared living alone.

Last year the Swiss suicide groups agreed to extend assisted suicide to people who are elderly but not terminally ill.

Peter Saunders

Peter Saunders, Campaign Director for the Care Not Killing Alliance stated that these deaths were a great tragedy. Saunders stated:

“Assisted suicide in these circumstances is the ultimate abandonment,” 

“This tragic case strongly underlines the need for comprehensive and affordable patient-centred care in which people's social and spiritual needs and not just physical needs are provided for."

Assisted suicide bills are being debated in Scotland and the UK.

Once society decides that it is acceptable to cause the death of people, the only question remaining is who can be assisted in their suicide.Henderson and McConachie feared living alone. It is concerning that the Swiss suicide group visited them and agreed that their lives were not worth living. 

They needed adequate home care and support not assisted suicide.

Let’s not forget the lessons of history and the leading role doctors played in holocaust.

Dr Peter Saunders is a founder of the Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK. This article was published on his blog on January 30, 2015.

Peter Saunders

By Dr Peter Saunders 

This week has seen two significant anniversaries that have revived memories of the Second World War, and in particular what Britain was spared from.

First was the 50th anniversary of the death of the great wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on 24 January 1965.

Second was the 70th anniversary of the liberation of prisoners from the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp – Holocaust Memorial day. More than one million people, mostly Jews, died at the Nazi camp (pictured) before it was liberated by allied troops on 27th January 1945.

Earlier this week a Jewish figurehead sparked controversy by suggesting that new draft legislation seeking to decriminalize assisted suicide in Scotland is based on similar principles to racist Nazi laws that paved the way for the Holocaust.

Auschwitz

Ephraim Borowski, director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, spoke out against Patrick Harvie’s Assisted Suicide Bill which is currently making its way through Holyrood in an evidence session with MSPs.

He referred to Holocaust Memorial Day to make ‘a point about practicalities rather than principles’ and added: ‘It's now a well-known cliche that the Holocaust didn't begin in Auschwitz, it ended in Auschwitz. In terms of principle, it began with the belief that some lives are not worth as much as others, and that is precisely what we are faced with here.’

Understandably his claims have elicited appeals to ‘Godwin’s law’ - an adage asserting that ‘As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1’.

But rather than dismissing Borowski’s comparison out of hand critics should spend some time examining the historical evidence-base behind it because it is considerable.

The horrific genocide of six million Jews was in fact only the final chapter in the Nazi holocaust story. The detail of how it happened, and particularly the role of doctors in the process, is not at all well known.

What ended in the 1940s in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Dachau and Treblinka had much more humble beginnings in the 1930s in nursing homes, geriatric hospitals and psychiatric institutions all over Germany.

When the Nazis arrived, the medical profession was ready and waiting.

Nazi doctors - Nuremberg

Twenty three physicians were tried at the so-called Nuremberg Doctors' Trial in 1946, which gave birth to the Nuremberg Code of ethics regarding medical experiments.

Many others including some of the very worst offenders never came to trial (see list of main perpetrators here and full list here)

How did it actually happen?

Our story begins with Germany emerging from the First World War defeated, impoverished and demoralised.

Into this vacuum in 1920 Karl Binding, a distinguished lawyer, and Alfred Hoche, a psychiatrist, published a book titled ‘The granting of permission for the destruction of worthless life. Its extent and form'.

In it they coined the term ‘life unworthy of life’ and argued that in certain cases it was legally justified to kill those suffering from incurable and severely crippling handicaps and injuries. Hoche used the term ballastexistenzen (‘human ballast’) to describe people suffering from various forms of psychiatric disturbance, brain damage and retardation.

By the early 1930s a propaganda barrage had been launched against traditional compassionate 19th century attitudes to the terminally ill and when the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, 6% of doctors were already members of the Nazi Physicians League.

In June of that year Deutsches Arzteblatt, today still the most respected and widely read platform for medical education and professional politics in Germany, declared on its title page that the medical profession had ‘unselfishly devoted its services and resources to the goal of protecting the German nation from biogenetic degeneration’.

From this eugenic platform, Professor Dr Ernst Rudin, Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Psychiatry of Munich, became the principle architect of enforced sterilisation. The profession embarked on the campaign with such enthusiasm, that within four years almost 300,000 patients had been sterilised, at least 50% for failing scientifically designed ‘intelligence tests’.

By 1939 (the year the war started), the sterilisation programme was halted and the killing of adult and paediatric patients began. The Nazi regime had received requests for ‘mercy killing’ from the relatives of severely handicapped children, and in that year an infant with limb abnormalities and congenital blindness (named Knauer) became the first to be put to death, with Hitler’s personal authorisation and parental consent.

This ‘test-case’ paved the way for the registration of all children under three years of age with ‘serious hereditary diseases’. This information was then used by a panel of ‘experts’, including three medical professors (who never saw the patients), to authorise death by injection or starvation of some 6,000 children by the end of the war.

Tiergartenstrasse 4

Adult euthanasia began in September 1939 when an organisation headed by Dr Karl Brandt and Philip Bouhler was set up at Tiergartenstrasse 4 (T4). The aim was to create 70,000 beds for war casualties and ethnic German repatriates by mid-1941.

All state institutions were required to report on patients who had been ill for five years or more and were unable to work, by filling out questionnaires and chosen patients were gassed and incinerated at one of six institutions (Hadamar being the most famous).

False death certificates were issued with diagnoses appropriate for age and previous symptoms, and payment for ‘treatment and burial’ was collected from surviving relatives.

The programme was stopped in 1941 when the necessary number of beds had been created. By this time the covert operation had become public knowledge.

The staff from T4 and the six killing centres was then redeployed for the killing of Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Russians and disloyal Germans. By 1943 there were 24 main death camps (and 350 smaller ones) in operation.

Throughout this process doctors were involved from the earliest stage in reporting, selection, authorisation, execution, certification and research. They were not ordered, but rather empowered to participate.

Leo Alexander (right), a psychiatrist with the Office of the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes at Nuremberg, described the process in his classic article 'Medical Science under Dictatorship' which was published in the New England Medical Journal in July 1949.

‘The beginnings at first were merely a subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitude of the physicians. It started with the attitude, basic in the euthanasia movement that there is such a thing as a life not worthy to be lived. This attitude in its early stages concerned itself merely with the severely and chronically sick. Gradually the sphere of those to be included in this category was enlarged to encompass the socially unproductive, the ideologically unwanted, the racially unwanted and finally all non-Germans.’

The War Crimes Tribunal reported that ‘part of the medical profession co-operated consciously and even willingly’ with the ‘mass killing of sick Germans’.

Among their numbers were some of the leading academics and scientists of the day; including professors of the stature of Hallervorden (neuropathology), Pernkopf (anatomy), Rudin (psychiatry/genetics), Schneider (psychiatry), von Verschuer (genetics) and Voss (anatomy). None of these men were ever prosecuted while of the 23 defendants at Nuremberg, only two were internationally recognised academics.

It is easy to distance ourselves from the holocaust and those doctors who were involved. However, images of SS butchers engaged in lethal experiments in prison camps don’t fit the historical facts; the whole process was orchestrated through the collaboration of internationally respected doctors and the State.

Dr Carl Brandt

With the advantage of hindsight we are understandably amazed that the German people and especially the German medical profession were fooled into accepting it. The judgement of the War Crimes Tribunal in 1949 as to how they were fooled was as follows.

'Had the profession taken a strong stand against the mass killing of sick Germans before the war, it is conceivable that the entire idea and technique of death factories for genocide would not have materialized...but far from opposing the Nazi state militantly, part of the medical profession co-operated consciously and even willingly, while the remainder acquiesced in silence. Therefore our regretful but inevitable judgement must be that the responsibility for the inhumane perpetrations of Dr Brandt ...and others, rests in large measure upon the bulk of the medical profession; because the profession without vigorous protest, permitted itself to be ruled by such men.' (War Crimes Tribunal. 'Doctors of Infamy'. 1948)

The British Medical profession and the Holyrood parliament need to take note.

Jewish leader condemns Scottish assisted suicide bill.

By Alex Schadenberg

Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Scottish media has reported that Ephraim Borowski, director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, condemned the Scottish assisted suicide bill.

Ephraim Borowski

The media reported Borowski as saying:

“It’s now a well-known cliche that the Holocaust didn’t begin in Auschwitz, it ended in Auschwitz. 

“In terms of principle, it began with the belief that some lives are not worth as much as others and that is precisely what we are faced with here.”

Borowski is commenting on the historical fact that the Holocaust began with the Nazi T4 euthanasia program that killed 70,000 people with disabilities.

Link to more information:

• Memorial to T4 euthanasia victims opens in Berlin.
• Memorial to German euthanasia victims.
• A Jewish perspective on euthanasia, assisted suicide and palliative care.

Scottish Assisted suicide rhetoric is nonsense

This article was published on January 28 on the HOPE Australia website.

B

Paul Russell

y Paul Russell, the Director of Hope Australia

An assisted suicide bill is slowly making its way through various committees of the Scottish parliament before ultimately being debated in the Scottish Parliament itself.

This bill is something of a ‘legacy bill’ following as it does the death last April of the former champion of this cause, Margo MacDonald MSP who had sponsored an earlier, failed attempt.

It is certainly worth a hat-tip to the Scots inasmuch as both MacDonald’s bill and this new bill by Green MSP Patrick Harvie take some radically different approaches to the issue, presumably to attempt to make these efforts more palatable than other failed initiatives. However, the same concerns arise as with all legislation on euthanasia or assisted suicide: vulnerable people are not protected; the legislation is unsafe and open to abuse.

I want to focus, however, on some of the rhetoric and suggestions from the pro-assisted suicide lobby on this bill that are as dangerous as they are facile and errant. Slogans and catch phrases are fine in so far as they highlight and encapsulate a policy position or campaign thrust, but when they attempt to lead the reader to a simplistic and patently false conclusion, they deserve scrutiny.

This from a submission to one of the inquiries conducted on the Scottish bill:

Experts say: Scotland's assisted suicide bill will undermine suicide prevention efforts.

By Alex Schadenberg

International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Herald newspaper in Scotland is reporting that experts are warning that the assisted suicide bill that is being debated in the Scottish parliament would undermine efforts to prevent suicide.

The Herald reported that:

A law that would legalise assisted suicide is facing growing opposition, as academics and ethicists raised fresh concerns that it would lead to the elderly being put under pressure to kill themselves. 

Figures within the medical profession have also raised new concerns that if the Bill currently making its way through Holyrood passes, it would undermine efforts to reduce suicides generally and open the door to euthanasia.

The article continued by quoting from the experts who submissions to the Scottish Health Committee on the assisted dying bill:

J Kenyon Mason Institute

The J Kenyon Mason Institute for Medicine, Life Sciences and Law, based at the University of Edinburgh, said in its submission that there were insufficient safeguards to protect patients "from coercion or undue influence in making decisions". 

... Robert Preston, director of Living and Dying Well, a research body established in 2010 to examine the evidence surrounding the end-of-life debate, claimed there was "no effective safeguarding system to protect the public and especially its most vulnerable members". 

He went on to argue that there are a number of important weaknesses in the Bill, including the lack of the need for a psychiatric assessment before an assisted suicide could take place. 

Mr Preston added: "In these days when home visits are not as common as was once the case, doctors often know little of their patients' lives beyond the consulting room. Yet the Bill is asking them to make life or death decisions without any objective assessment regime to guide them."

The Scottish Council on Human Bioethics stated:

labelled the proposals "dangerous" and said elderly and other vulnerable people may feel it is their "duty to die" as they are a burden or because their care was eating up family members' inheritance.

The Scottish government opposes the assisted dying bill but Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) will be given a free vote on the bill.

The previous assisted dying bill was sponsored by Margo MacDonald (MSP), that would have legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide in Scotland was overwhelmingly defeated on Dec. 1, 2010 by a vote of 85 to 16.

The current assisted dying bill was introduced by Margo MacDonald (November 2013). After she died it was picked up by Patrick Harvie (MSP).

Links to more information:

• Scotland may kill assisted suicide bill in committee.
• Scotland assisted suicide bill discriminates against people with disabilities.
• Scotland assisted suicide plan 'unethical and uncontrollable'.
• British Medical Association rejects Scottish assisted suicide bill.
• Dr Stephen Hutchinson: Assisted suicide is not safe.

Assisted suicide makes a mockery of us as guardians of justice and compassion

The Herald Newspaper in Scotland published this commentary on January 13, 2015.

In the debate on assisted suicide, we are all ultimately on the same side: we all want to limit suffering.

Compassion motivates all those who are genuinely interested in the debate. There is all the difference, however, between limiting suffering and ending life.

Committed supporters of assisted suicide have to as ask themselves two fundamental questions. First, how much risk to the vulnerable are they prepared to accept in order to facilitate suicide by the invulnerable? Secondly, where to draw the line in determining what suffering "qualifies" for assisted suicide?

No safeguard can ever be 100 per cent effective. As well as the clear abuses, there would also be the inevitable subtle pressures on those whose illness or condition met the criteria. On a recent BBC Radio 5 Live phone-in, Michael, who has motor neurone disease, explained how he is asked several times a week whether he would consider assisted suicide.

He said: "It makes one feel like I should be contemplating it for sake of the health service or my family watching what I'm going through. And I'm afraid that it will extend into the social conscience that people almost expect assisted dying."

There is a real danger of this societal pressure subtly eroding free choice from within. And this is something that no safeguard could ever protect against. Legalising an action normalises it so that it often becomes expected.

Scotland may kill assisted suicide bill in committee.

By Alex Schadenberg
International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Edinburgh News is reporting that the Scottish assisted suicide bill may die in the Health and Sport committee. The hearings will begin on January 13.

The group - Doctors for assisted suicide are concerned that too many groups opposing assisted suicide have been invited to present to the government committee. The Edinburgh News reported that: 

Duncan McNeil MSP, the convener of the health and sport committee, said it would consider all evidence placed before it and give it equal weight.

When reading Scotland's assisted suicide bill it is clear that the language of the bill will kill.

Section 1 of the bill says:

It is not a crime (of any kind) to assist a person to commit suicide.

This means that anyone can do it.

Scotland assisted suicide bill discriminates against people with disabilities.

Kevin Fitzpatrick

By Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick OBE
Spokesperson - Not Dead Yet UK Campaign.

An online news service has claimed that Scotland is set to introduce the ‘most robust’ assisted suicide legislation yet (Sputnik, Dec 29, 2014). Nonsense.

Scotland’s previous attempts at legalising someone else to intervene in another’s death by causing that dying person’s final end, have been amongst the weakest, most flawed to appear in any legislature.

The current Bill is just as bad as any seen in Scotland previously. It continues to include ‘people with progressive life-shortening conditions’ – thus it exposes pretty nearly every significantly disabled person to the threats inherent in it. It sets a 14 day limit from decision to death: a perilously thin time in which to detect and treat depression. It removes any question of crimes being committed in ‘assisting’ or pressing someone to commit suicide – as long as the assister claims ‘I acted out of compassion’ they will be free of investigation. But saying does not make it so.

The Bill contains all the other flaws of proposed and in other jurisdictions, enacted laws. The simple truth is that we can never legislate in advance for ‘pure compassion’ because there is no such thing, even in well-meaning people who give assistance. It is no more robust than any other law, proposed or already in force. And it is disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

The lie is that there will be ‘safeguards’. The overwhelming evidence from around the world is that such laws do exactly the opposite of what their proponents claim: it removes choice from patients, placing it in the hands of the minority of doctors who are willing to move from protecting life to furnishing the means to take it.

77% of GPs do not want a change in law, and the profession’s royal colleges all reject the move. Assisted suicide/euthanasia is never a medical decision: it comes when medicine says ‘we have nothing left – there is no more we can do’. Most doctors recognise that a change in law forces them into the position of ‘higher moral judges’ and they know they cannot be that superior just because they are doctors. It risks trampling on their own human rights, not to be involved. It leaves patients who form such suicidal wishes to ‘shop around’ amongst the remainder who are willing. We are left to wonder whether these few can really epitomise ‘higher moral judgment’ in opposition to all their colleagues, whether they really ought to be practising medicine at all.

The Bill’s promoter in the Scottish parliament says the proposal will allow people to ‘[take] control of the end of their own life…demonstrat[ing] compassion and respect for each person's own choice…’. But if the person is a healthy, well-off family man with apparently ‘everything to live for’ the response will be very different to that offered to a significantly disabled person. Why? It is based in the attitude that a disabled life is not worth living. They constantly refer to the loss of bodily functions as the knock-down ‘indignity’ that demands we offer the sufferer the final solution: death. If that were true, there would be a queue miles long of disabled people who manage incontinence daily.

This attitudinal response is fundamentally based on one thing: non-disabled people saying to disabled people ‘Of course we understand you want to die. We would too in your place. So it is our duty to help you to die.’ That is purely and simply, rank discrimination against disabled people.

It should not even require special pleading but that is what we are faced with: hoping that most other non-disabled people will see our disabled lives for what they are, and value us equally first and foremost as human beings like any other. It should go without saying that non-disabled people deciding that disabled people can be candidates for elimination is the worst kind of disability discrimination. It is a moral judgment on the worth of our lives, and it is fatal.

Do not let anyone, doctor or politician hoodwink you into thinking any differently. Just because someone says they are acting out of compassion is no guarantee that they are. And with all the pressures doctors face, on top of the usual gamut of hard decisions daily living throws at them, they are pushed to make such decisions to end lives by the fatal flawed logic that killing the sufferer is the only way to end their suffering. As I said: Nonsense.

Good Grief: Now It’s “Death Doulas”

By Wesley Smith - published on his blog on December 27, 2014

The Hippocratic Oath is one of the last remaining impediments to the complete deprofessionalization of medicine.

Doctors don’t take it much anymore, but the people still embrace its core purpose as anessential protection of their lives and wellbeing.

Now, in the LA Times, a doctor and journalist try to put the Oath out of its misery by taking the primary responsibility for interacting with dying patients away from physicians and handing decision-making over to “death doulas.” From, “The Hippocratic Oath and the Terminally Ill,” by Nora Zamichow and Ken Murray:

If we allow medicine to prolong life, should we also allow it to shorten life for the terminally ill? 

We could, however, skirt the controversy entirely: What if we created another class of medical professionals known as death doulas, who could fill a gap between treatment doctors and hospice workers?

Scotland's anyone assisted suicide bill.

This article was published on Wesley Smith's blog on October 26.

By Wesley Smith

So much for “aid in dying” as a “medical treatment.”

In Scotland, a bill is pending to authorize anyone-assisted suicides. From the honestly named–as opposed to US proposals--”Scottish Assisted Suicide Bill:”

No criminal liability for assisting suicide (1) It is not a crime (of any kind) to assist a person to commit suicide.

That basically means anyone can assist.

The person who wants to die has to be age 16 or higher, have two doctors state that he or she has a terminal or “life-shortening” illness–which,when you think about it, could be almost anything:

(5) The kind of illness or condition referred to in subsection (4)(a) is—(a) an illness that is, for the person, either terminal or life-shortening, or (b) a condition that is,;for the person, progressive and either terminal or life-shortening.

That’s a wide enough gap to drive a hearse through. Many conditions are far from terminal but could be considered “life shortening,” including diabetes, asymptomatic HIV infection, MS, plugged arteries in the heart, bi-polar disease, Lupus, perhaps even, obesity or nicotine addiction.

Scotland: Assisted suicide plan 'unethical and uncontrollable'

By Alex Schadenberg

International Chair - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Sign the CNK Scotland online petition against the assisted suicide bill.

The BBC reported that the Care Not Killing (CNK) in Scotland has launched an online petition calling on MSPs to reject a bill that would allow people to end their life by assisted suicide.

This bill represents the second attempt to pass assisted suicide at the Scottish Parliament, the first having been voted down by MSPs in 2010. The justice committee is due to take evidence on the practical application and legal aspects of the bill at its meeting on Tuesday October 28.

The BBC reported that CNK, which includes disability and human rights groups, healthcare providers and faith-based bodies, said the current law making assisted suicide illegal is "clear and right". CNK stated that:

Proposals to legalise assisted suicide are "unnecessary, unethical and uncontrollable", according to campaigners opposed to the move.

Gordon Macdonald

The BBC stated that CNK Spokesman Dr Gordon Macdonald said: 

Any change in the law to allow assisted suicide would place pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives for fear of being a financial, emotional or care burden upon others. 

This would especially affect people who are disabled, elderly, sick or depressed. 

The Scottish Parliament rightly rejected the legalisation of assisted suicide and euthanasia just four years ago out of concern for public safety. 

In every free democratic society, there are limits placed on human freedom in order to protect the common good and vulnerable people. 

The law must not be changed to accommodate the wishes of a small number of desperate and determined people at the expense of the rights of others." 

Once any so-called 'right-to-die' is established, we will see incremental extension with activists applying pressure to expand the categories of people who qualify for it. The right to die will become a duty to die."