Assisted Living

Unlike the "Scottish Green Party" whose 7 MSPs all voted for the euphemistically-titled euthanasia bill on "Assisted Dying" (Holyrood vote 17-3-26), we do not support such potentially coercive death!

Not only is killing another human being morally wrong, but it would easily and quickly become a slippery slope.

Once the principle that the State can put down its ill and elderly has been established, then there will be people who will start to campaign for it to be available to people with mental problems, with depression, with loneliness. Having established the principle that the State can put down people, then an entirely new law will be instituted to euthanise the unhappy.

There are many depressed people in society. There are many people suffering from anxiety. Many young people, understandably, have trouble negotiating the world as they start to learn about it. Such young people need support and guidance and positive role models.

In many ways, us humans were not designed to be confronted with the (often traumatic) experiences to which we are subjected via modern communication methods; latterly via the Anxiety Machine known as the Mobile Phone, and previously via the Television.

For many people, such negative and troubled emotions will pass. Yet we are being encouraged to accept that such emotions should be final to our lives, and that this is somehow OK! That the way to deal with such emotions is to stop living!

The State should not do anything which could make such an option "more attractive".

The State should not support euthanasia. Otherwise…

It would Quickly Normalise Suicide in Society

That is to say, suicide – something which is normally considered a terrible tragedy – would become "just another lifestyle choice". It would become State-approved behaviour. Like paying your Council Tax, it would be something that the State encourages you to do. You might even be punished for not doing it.

Indeed, the libertarian (and "Thatcherite") and false notion of "choice" is always summoned up to try to justify euthanasia.

The Notion of "Choice"

This idea, that we can all exercise "choice" equally, is simply not true. Choices available to each and every one of us are always different and limited by circumstances. Our "choice" is often limited by what other people are able to do for us, or not do for us.

In this regard, we agree with the MSP, Pam Duncan-Glancy (Independent), who said in Holyrood on the evening of the vote (17-3-26):

"There will be countless disabled people in our constituencies who haven't had the choice to have a shower in weeks. People who can't choose when they go to bed. Some who will already be in bed.

"People who can't choose what to eat. People who can't choose to go out of their house, because it isn't accessible. People tonight who can't choose the care or the healthcare they need, including at the end, because it simply isn't available for them.

"And crucially, there will be disabled people whose struggle is so hard that they've given up hope, given up fighting, and will be considering tonight taking their own lives.

"I know this, because I have been all of these people I've described. They live in fear every single day, worrying about what new limit someone else will put on their lives, and what little power they will have to change it. They live every single day without choice at all…

"In a world where so many have little or no choice, we can't risk making death the only choice they ever have."

Published at x.com/ddhitchens/status/2033995342337769679

And as former MP Dennis Canavan has said: "I don't think anyone has the right to choose a course of action which could have devastating consequences for other people". (Quoted in The Herald, 19-3-26, p14).

The Notion of "Control" over our own Lives

This is another concept which doesn't mirror reality.

The idea that even abled-bodied people have some sort of sovereign "control" over our own lives isn't even true in a secular sense, much less a divine sense.

Consider our own lives. We're all constrained, quite rightly, by powers and laws and circumstances beyond ourselves. To imagine otherwise is to create a false sense of our own authority and ability. It's to imagine we are God Himself. Such self-delusion is only going to lead to depression.

What we Advocate

We advocate that people are assisted to live, not "assisted to die".

That requires investment in palliative care, in hospices, in counselling for the depressed, for financial assistance to families to care for their elderly.