Assisted suicide 'danger' claim

Mrs MacDonald hopes to introduce her bill later this year

Proposals to legalise assisted suicide in Scotland have been branded "dangerous and unnecessary" by a medical ethics body.

The Scottish Council on Human Bioethics said the planned bill risked turning disabled and terminally ill people into second class citizens.

Independent MSP Margo MacDonald hopes to introduce an assisted dying bill later this year.

She first needs to win the support of 18 MSPs to bring it before parliament.

The Lothian MSP's End Of Life Choices (Scotland) Bill would allow people whose lives become intolerable through a progressive degenerative condition, a trauma or terminal illness to seek a doctor's help in dying.

When dying patients realise that they do not need to suffer, they often change their minds about euthanasia

Dr Callum MacKellar
Scottish Council on Human Bioethics

But in a statement released in response to the proposal, the council said assisted dying was unnecessary because physical suffering can be adequately alleviated in all but the most rare cases.

Director of research Dr Callum MacKellar said: "When dying patients realise that they do not need to suffer, they often change their minds about euthanasia."

The statement also said assisted dying was "dangerous" because it would change views on death and disability and mean Scottish society accepted - for the first time - that some lives were no longer worth living.

"People who are difficult or costly to care for may begin to be seen as burdens to society or second-class citizens," Dr MacKellar added.

"In addition, it would fundamentally change the role of doctors and other health care professionals, whose role has always been to cure and care for patients, not to kill them."

Moral objections

The council was formed in 1997 and is an independent, non-partisan, non-religious council composed of physicians, lawyers, ethicists and other professionals from disciplines associated with medical ethics.

Under Mrs MacDonald's bill, any suitably registered doctor asked by a patient for help in ending their life would then be required to seek the opinion of a specialist on the patient's capacity to make such a decision.

Doctors with religious or moral objections would not be obliged to help any patient to end their life.

After any assisted death the doctor would have to supply the relevant health board with medical records for the patient.