Promises That Cannot Be Kept




I am making this fraternal appeal for solidarity to all trade unionists, socialist friends and ‘comrades’ in Scotland on the Left, who care about defending the marginalised and fighting against inequality, because this issue is truly a social justice issue.

I appeal, not on behalf of social conservatives or religious fanatics but on behalf of ordinary families with elderly relatives who are concerned about the new Assisted Dying Bill. I appeal on behalf of parents and grandparents of disabled children and grandchildren, who are deeply worried about the future implications of this proposed legislation and the message this most recent Assisted Dying Bill sends to their loved ones.

At first glance, the Assisted Dying Bill Scotland looks and sounds a little like the type of good end of life care that goes on in all our fine hospices, with its somewhat misleading language around freedom from suffering being made available to all those who are terminally ill. Or assisted dying only being offered where no cure is available, yet the offer of death is not good palliative care and the Assisted Dying Bill Scotland is not offering palliative care, it is offering only death.

In reality, this Bill will move vast swathes of Scots into an entirely new category and give doctors additional powers and an authority, which is too broad and far too ill-defined.

Think of the implications for all those who do indeed live with a range of (terminal) physical and mental health conditions, for which there is ‘no cure’. Think of all those ‘walking miracles’ we encounter on an almost daily basis, those folks who were once told that ‘Im very sorry but you won’t see your next birthday’, yet here they are decades later, living life to its fullest.

What does this legislation say to those vulnerable individuals about the value society places on their lives? What does this proposal say about that small chance of hope and recovery, which we all cling to in times of despair and suffering? It tells those people that they are a burden and that there is no hope.

Think too of the context, into which this is legislation is being proposed; Assisted Suicide amid a Scottish mental health pandemic, combined with an NHS funding crisis in Scotland, is a recipe for a disaster because ending a life is much cheaper than providing pain relief and decent care.

But how do we know it would be a disaster? We know because in those countries and states where Assisted Suicide has been introduced, the national suicide rate has increased. By 2019 in The Netherlands, 500 people had been euthanised due to psychiatric conditions and dementia, by 2020 the Dutch had agreed to euthanise children under 12.

Meanwhile in North America, we hear horror stories about individuals requesting a wheelchair but being offered assisted suicide instead, a lethal injection is much more cost effective. As Dr Leonie Herx of Queen’s University Ontario stated ‘’Administering death is cheaper and easier than providing care, and it will quickly become the solution for any form of human suffering, as we have seen in Canada".

What is needed is much better palliative care and pain control (a lack of pain control is often given as the reason people ‘choose’ euthanasia.)

So, please write to your MSP and ask them for their views on the Assisted Dying Bill, express your concerns and if they tell you it can’t happen here, then perhaps remind them of all the DNR signs which were placed over hospital beds in Scotland, during the pandemic.

In truth, they are making promises about the lives of our vulnerable, that cannot be kept.

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