Roman Catholic bishops are urging parishioners to protect the unborn and elderly, ahead of an upcoming Day for Life.
Bishop Stephen Robson, writing on behalf of other Roman Catholic bishops in Scotland, said “pro-life people” should value life “at its very beginnings, its maturing and its declining”.
In his letter he said young people can particularly get behind this message.
Concern
He reasoned that hope, optimism, the desire to “give of self” and an ability to put up with “the challenges that life throws at them” are all characteristics of the young.
“Especially close to the young is the care of, and concern for, life”, he said.
He made the comments in relation to 2014’s Day for Life in July which ‘celebrates and upholds the dignity of human life’.
Pressure
The event contrasts with the assisted suicide Bill which is currently backed by Green MSP Patrick Harvie and is in its early stages in the Scottish Parliament.
The Bill would allow people as young as 16 with a terminal illness or progressive life-shortening condition to tell their GP about their wish for assisted suicide.
Earlier this year Daily Record commentator Joan Burnie said such a change could put “intolerable pressure on the old and vulnerable”.
Unsafe
Burnie commented that such a law could lead to family pressure on an elderly grandmother to have her life ended in order to “get their mitts on her savings”.
She said “maybe such a situation would seldom happen”, but that “even one person driven to take their own life for the convenience of someone else is one too many.”
In March a consultant physician in palliative care said the majority of doctors in Scotland are “resolutely opposed” to assisted suicide as it is “unsafe and unethical”.
Dr Stephen Hutchison was responding to a letter to The Herald from a group of eleven doctors who expressed support for legalising assisted suicide.
