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.
Murder is the forceful taking of another’s life. Forceful. Without consent. See the difference?
Make up your mind. Decide what you believe, then argue your point. Stop changing your mind every few seconds.
I’m not changing my mind, I’m providing caveats so you can better understand my position. I was under the impression that we were having a civil discussion. No need to get snippy.
Moreover, I was asking for your position to better understand where you’re coming from.
You’re unwilling to accept long standing definitions of murder, but you can’t make up your mind what your opinion is about what constitutes murder. Yet you still wish to argue about it, without being about to decide what you believe.
I’ve been here long enough to demonstrate my position. If you haven’t been here long enough to notice, you can always use a search engine to review my posts.
I thought my position was pretty well-defined. It’s murder if it’s non-consensual taking of another’s life when not at war. Sorry if that’s not clear enough.
And what gives any one person the right to put another in that position? If someone wants to be dead badly enough they can eat D-CON. They have no right to expect somebody else to do their own dirty work.
This isn’t about what you should “expect”, this is about what should be allowed. I’m not in favor of forcing anyone into any position. If the person you ask says no, you’ll have to find someone else or do it yourself. It’s simple, really.
What difference does it make if it’s “allowed”? Commit suicide and it’s done with.
Why should assisted suicide be any different? What about the act of assistance changes the parameters of the argument?
They've been killing off expensive-to-care-for people in Holland for several years, now, without anyone's consent except for the bureaucraucrats and doctors involved. Once the state pays for your care (and that's coming, isn't it), and you get more expensive than they like, you will be disposed of through some form of "assistance". We have to expect both eventualities together because they surely will come together in time. What a horror!
It involves somebody other than person who wants to die. Why is that necessary?
ping
Thanks, Glacier Honey (interesting name!) - wagglebee got it pinged out.
Feel free to alert me or wagglebee to any relevant articles.
Britain likes euthanasia. It’s Scotland that doesn’t.
You would certainly have fit in just fine in German from the 30s on.
People are totally free, right now, to off themselves any time they want.
The medical profession and the government should not be in the business of killing people; other than the gov executing evil doers that deserve it.
What you want is a nanny government that acts as you desire, regardless of how many other people do not want that path. Basically, you want to be lord of others and force your will upon them. Faux libertarianism at it’s “best”.
Or you could find some wilds and make your own little tribe and be master of the tribe.
Yes indeed, Hitler was not an actual atheist. He was a monist and actually thought he was god. Search “Hitler’s Library” - a thread from a few years ago, used to have a copy on my desktop but no more.
Basically he was a sort of nihilist/monist/I am godist.
Necessary has nothing to do with whether or not it should be legal.
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