MSP behind assisted dying bill backs change to eligibility rules

The MSP leading efforts to legalise assisted dying in Scotland has signalled support for a change that would limit access to terminally ill people with six months or less to live.

The Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, tabled by Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur, would currently apply to any terminally ill, mentally competent adult regardless of their life expectancy.

McArthur hopes the criteria change, which would bring the bill in line with proposed Westminster legislation, would reassure undecided MSPs ahead of a final vote.

The stage three ballot will be held at Holyrood next month.

MSPs approved McArthur's bill in principle in May, six months after MPs backed an assisted dying bill at Westminster that would apply south of the border.

Both bills are currently being scrutinised in their respective parliaments, and would need to pass final votes in the coming weeks to become law.

The fate of the Scottish bill - which was passed by 70 votes to 56 at stage one - is on a knife edge, and could fall if just a handful of MSPs change their minds.

McArthur opposed calls to introduce a six-month prognosis clause in the bill during the initial debate.

He told BBC Scotland News he had concerns that it could be arbitrary, inflexible and in some cases "very difficult to establish with any great degree of certainty".

However, the LibDem said that having a six-month prognosis period may offer more reassurance to some MSPs.

He noted that the prognosis model "seems to work in a way that doesn't cause undue problems" for medics or patients in parts of Australia and the US where assisted dying is legalised.

McArthur said he was open to considering if a prognosis period could provide a "safeguard" while not "presenting an unreasonable obstacle to those who meet the eligibility criteria".

He added: "I think this is an amendment that may command support across the parliament and if that gives more reassurance to colleagues ahead of the final vote at stage three then I'm supportive of it."

Parliamentarians have been given a free vote on the bill, meaning they are not "whipped" by their party to vote one way or the other.

Labour MSP Daniel Johnson, who voted for the bill at stage one, previously tried to amend the bill to include a six-month prognosis in the eligibility criteria.

He said he would table a similar amendment at stage three.

"This is about people who are in the very final stages, where perhaps they have exhausted all the other possibilities," Johnson told BBC Scotland News.

He said that while doctors could never be certain with prognoses, the six-month criteria would be a "yard stick" to ensure that people were in the final stages of life.

Johnson argued the current definition in the bill was too "open-ended".

"What I'm really concerned about is creating an expectation that at the end of life this is the option that people are almost expected to take," he said.

"I think that would be really dangerous."

Johnson added that he needed further clarity about safeguards to ensure medics were satisfied that patients understood the decision they were making, and were not being coerced by anyone else.

Scottish Conservative MSP Craig Hoy said no changes to the bill could convince him to vote for it.

He told BBC Scotland News: "Whatever changes are given here and now, it doesn't mean we're not at the top of a very slippery slope and that judges or MSPs in the future could change the legislation to make it wholly unpalatable to be people who might be voting for it today."

From the moment MSPs approved the assisted dying bill in principle, it has been clear there would need to be significant changes if the proposed law is to be put into practice.

Why? Because some of those who backed it did so to allow the debate to continue and to see if their concerns could be addressed.

Dozens of changes were made as the bill was scrutinised by a Holyrood committee - not least the decision to raise the age of eligibility from 16 to 18.

Potential supporters want further safeguards including the requirement for a terminally ill person to be considered to be within six months of dying.

Liam McArthur has been moving towards accepting that change and is now of the view that it is necessary to offer further reassurance to those he needs to keep onside.

Whatever the final shape of his bill, the final vote in March is likely to be much closer than the 70-56 margin that was secured in the initial vote last May.