Posted on 12/08/2008 4:07:05 PM PST by wagglebee
Edinburgh, Scotland (LifeNews.com) -- The Scottish Parliament, the devolved national, unicameral legislature of Scotland, is not receptive to legislation to legalize assisted suicide in that portion of Great Britain. Margo MacDonald, the MSP behind the bill, failed to garner enough support to introduce the measure.
MacDonald is hoping to get a private member's bill introduced at Holyrood next year but only has the backing of four out of the 129 that comprise the legislative body.
That means she is 14 short of the number needed to get the bill introduced and well short of the level of support necessary to get an assisted suicide bill approved.
MacDonald's bill appears to be modeled after American laws in Oregon and Washington state that require a waiting period before a terminally ill patient can request a physician to provide a lethal drug prescription.
After realizing she didn't have enough support to get her measure introduced, she talked with the London Times about why she brought the bill.
"There are lots of people up and down Scotland who would like to make sure that they miss the last - and for them most intolerable - part of life, because of incapacity, loss of dignity, loss of control, insufferable pain perhaps," she said.
Pro-life advocates oppose assisted suicide and say that doctors should not be in the business of killing patients. They say patients should be given more help to cope with pain and depression and better hospice care.
Though a bill to legalize assisted suicide doesn't appear to be advancing in Scotland, pro-life advocates in England are more concerned.
A new piece of legislation, the Coroners and Justice Bill, which British Parliament officials announced at the start of the parliamentary year, will deal with assisted suicide. The measure, would reportedly modernize the law "to increase public understanding."
What that means, however, is another question.
The bill could make it more clear when people would be charged under the law for aiding in an assisted suicide, as in the case of Debbie Purdy.
John Smeaton, the director of the pro-life group Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, explained some of the concerns on Thursday.
"We are concerned that radical, so-called right-to-die MPs or peers - urged on by media coverage for assertions that some elderly people have a so-called duty to die - might seek to use the bill to weaken the legal protection of the right to life," Smeaton says.
Good for Scots
Good for Scots
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Yay Scotland! Home of many of my ancestors!
I oppose the state telling people when and how to end their life. That socialist Britain would oppose euthanasia doesn’t surprise me one bit.
Me, too. And far too many conservatives think it’s ok to use government for this kind of thing.
Hey Monk I watching History channel international they have thingy on William Wallace Bradeheart dude
One thing they mention he didn’t look like Mel Gibson I haven’t been disappoint since I found out that Ricardo Montilban wore that plastic chest in Star Trek Two Wrath of Khan
Its not about legalising euthenasia, its about protecting the people who make it possible from prosecution for unlawful killing, which is pretty much the state’s job to do in any country....
I realize you are new here and perhaps lost, but Free Republic is a CONSERVATIVE, PRO-LIFE forum.
Socialism fostered the modern euthanasia movement.
![](http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm9/wagglebee/euthanasia.jpg?t=1221694000%22";)
Which is a slippery slope fallacy. If the action - legalized euthanasia - does not interfere with the rights of another, the action should be legal, regardless of what it may lead to.
A person is free to shoot himself in the head any time he likes, but the government shouldn’t sanction suicide. These euthanasia laws are really about giving people the right to help OTHER people kill themselves. You want to jump out a window? Fine, I guess. You want to push someone else out a window (albeit with that person’s consent)? You’re going to jail.
I don’t believe it is a ‘slippery slope’ fallicy. Euthenasia hasn’t even been legalised (yet) and already the debate has moved on from a ‘right to die’ to one of a ‘duty to die’. If you follow that path down to its logical destination you will end up in a very scary place indeed.....
It is a fallacy, because you cannot guarantee that it will happen, and the threat of what might happen should not bar an action from becoming legal.
What a profound argument for drunk driving.
The "logical destination" is actually the stated agenda:
I oppose government involvement in personal medical issues. Government has no right to end an innocent life, it also has no right to extend life against the wishes of a dying individual.
If the government is the ultimate arbiter of life and death (as you want it to be), the government has a right to say a baby is not really human and can be aborted. I am both pro-life and pro-euthanasia, either you let the government decide who lives and who dies, or you leave that choice to the individuals involved. I chose the later.
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