RC Church: ‘We should be caring for people, not killing them’

The vulnerable should not be made to fear their lives are a burden to others, the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland has warned.

Last week, Liam McArthur MSP’s proposed Assisted Dying (Scotland) Bill was lodged at Holyrood. If passed, it will allow anyone aged 16 or over who is deemed terminally ill and has been resident in Scotland for 12 months to receive help to kill themselves.

Anthony Horan, Director of the Catholic Parliamentary Office, called the proposals “dangerous”.

‘Futile’

Mr Horan said: “It risks undermining the provision of palliative care and undermining efforts to prevent suicide will make the most vulnerable people, including the elderly and disabled, feel like a burden and its safeguards will prove futile.

“The current law is the safeguard. We should be caring for people, not killing them.”

Horan acknowledged that everyone desires a “dignified death”, but he emphasised that this can never be achieved by killing people.

‘Dignity’

The Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, in its submission to the public consultation on the Bill, stated that human dignity “exists irrespective of age, health, and physical or mental ability.

“Assisted suicide attacks human dignity and results in human life being increasingly valued on the basis of its efficiency and utility, to the point of considering as ‘unworthy lives’ those who do not meet this criterion.”

Two assisted suicide Bills have been defeated in the Scottish Parliament since 2010, most recently in 2015, when MSPs rejected Patrick Harvie’s Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill by 82 votes to 36.

A majority of MSPs in both the Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Labour voted against the Bill. MSPs from the Scottish Liberal Democrats and the SNP also rejected the legislation, while both Scottish Green MSPs at the time voted in favour.