8mm
Posted on 04/13/2008 11:04:24 AM PDT by wagglebee
Veteran MSP Margo MacDonald plans to research clinics abroad which allow those with terminal illnesses to end their own lives.
The 64-year-old, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, recently told fellow MSPs that she should be allowed to bring about her own death.
She is now calling for a public debate on assisted suicide.
Ms MacDonald, independent MSP for the Lothians, said: "I want to research the whole topic."
She said she had not investigated how assisted suicide abroad operates before and added: "I'm not exactly at death's door."
However, she said: "I feel a responsibility because I've spoken about the principle of the thing. I've got to get to know about the practicalities and I've got to hear all sorts of opinions."
Ms MacDonald said people contacted her after she spoke out in a Holyrood debate on choices for patients coming to the end of a terminal illness.
She said: "I've had hundreds of people get in touch with me and I'm not exaggerating when I say only a handful said they disagreed.
"There's a huge number of people, many of them like me, affected by this, so let's debate this thing properly."
In February's debate, Ms MacDonald told MSPs: "I want to find a way in which I can take the decision to end my life in case I'm unlucky enough to have the worst form of Parkinson's near the end of life."
Palliative care
Scottish law does not permit people to assist in taking a life and Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon has said the Scottish Government has no plans to change that.
Ms MacDonald argued that situation meant people suffering from a terminal disease who wanted to end their own life had little alternative than going to a facility abroad.
She said: "People have no other option if they want to make sure they don't criminalise anyone in the UK, and nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to put that burden on anybody."
Ms MacDonald stressed she supported palliative care, but added: "Hospices aren't anything like as widespread as I would want to seem them, and there is no doubt about it that palliative care varies from district to district.
"Also, in terms of a need to try to make sure you do exit life with dignity, and still feeling you have some control over your own life, palliative care is fine for some people but there are conditions that it doesn't suit."
A dignified person will have dignity in death NO MATTER WHAT.
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Oh. I thought she was going to experiment on herself.
Bummer.
They've already got our babies and now they want the old and sick. It is becoming such a culture of death, quite opposite of what it ought to be.
They are already killing the handicapped here in the United States (Terri Schiavo) and the Europeans are pushing euthanasia for kids with certain conditions (already here in America a large percentage of babies who test positive for Down Syndrome during prenatal testing are aborted).
I want to add my agreement here.
I don't know about Australia, but some 30,000 Americans commit suicide every year, without manipulatively dragging our major medical, legal, and political structures into it for "assistance" or "permission."
I would argue that it's a wicked and/or a pathetic thing to commit suicide "freelance" --- though who can judge in the case of the clinically depressed or otherwise impaired? But that doesn't even compare to the rotten evil of "legal" or "assisted" suicide where you manipulate and corrupt your own friends and family, and the major institutions of society, as your accomplices.
Doctors, nurses, and hospice workers should not be pulled into the picture as accessories to the deed, because they are, and should be, unalterably committed to the patient's health: and nobody is healthier dead.
Lawyers, judges, and politicians should not be implicated in suicide because they're supposed to be dedicated to our rights and liberties: and death effectively snuffs ALL rights and all liberties.
I have never quite understood why those would-be suicides who say their #1 value is personal autonomy, don't just do it --- like those other thousands of self-respecting autonomous suicides* --- and leave the rest of us out of it.
* (Hoping the irony here is apparent.)
It seems odd that the obvious statements you made even have to be stated! Great points and well said, Mrs. Don-o. Hope you don't mind if I use these quotes.
Hey hey, quote away.
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