Advocates and medics to debate assisted suicide

Assisted suicide is to be the subject of a further medico-legal debate involving members of the Faculty of Advocates and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

The next event in the "Doctors, Lawyers and Wolves" series, on Wednesday 12 September, will see David Stephenson QC, a specialist in medical law, joining a panel of medical experts to discuss "Till Death Do Us Part". Issues to be raised include legal aspects of end-of-life care and whether the law needs to be changed to permit physician assisted suicide.

In the first such collaboration earlier this year, the two professional bodies discussed the implications and lessons of the Bawa-Garba case, in which a doctor was convicted of the manslaughter of a six-year-old boy by gross negligence and given a two-year suspended jail sentence.

Mr Stephenson said: "Assisted suicide is an issue that will not go away, despite failed attempts to legislate in both Scotland and England. The position in Scotland is unsatisfactory in light of the Inner House decision in Ross v Lord Advocate 2016 SC 502. The case suggests assistance will not in some circumstances be criminal in Scotland. If so, then the limits of legality and the regulation of practice in the interests of affected individuals and the wider public is a matter of acute concern."

The debate begins at 6pm at the RCPE’s Great Hall in Queen Street, Edinburgh. Click here for further information and to book.