Assisted Suicide Bill defeated in first vote
Scotland's Parliament rejected the legalisation of help to die for the second time yesterday, as MSPs rejected the Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill after its stage 1 debate.
The vote was 82-36 against the member's bill introduced by independent MSP Margo MacDonald and taken on following her own death by the Greens' Patrick Harvie.
MSPs were given a free vote and no party lines were taken: members of all four main parties voted on each side. The four party leaders (counting Labour's Kezia Dugdale) all voted against. Campaigners on both sides lobbied up until the vote, following a vigorous public debate as the principles of the bill were considered by the Parliament's Health & Sport Committee.
In its report the committee declined to take a position on the bill, but stated that a number of key provisions were insufficiently clear. After the vote Mr Harvie said there was still a need for the law to be clarified.
"Clearly the detail of the bill wasn't good enough to convince Parliament, but I think it's awoken more people to the problems of the current law", he commented.
With supporters of the bill founding on individual autonomy and opponents on protection for the vulnerable against exploitation, among other arguments, Siobhan McMahon (Labour), whi is herself disabled, commented: "I believe that, if passed, the bill would reinforce the concept that my life and those of others with life-shortening conditions are not worth living and are not of the same value as those without those conditions... I find it extremely significant that the bill has failed to attract support from that section of society."
Supporters of the bill pointed to the fact that it attracted 36 votes on favour, compared with only 16 during the previous Parliament when Jeremy Purvis first introduced a bill on the subject.