The Scottish Parliament has rejected the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, voting by a majority of 12 MSPs to put paid to any further progress on legalising assisted dying in Scotland.
The proposal, which had been brought by Liam MacArthur, would have allowed two doctors to confirm a person was terminally ill and had the mental capacity to make such a request n order for them to end their life. A change introduced last week would have meant people should be “reasonably expected” to have six months to live or less before they would be eligible for an assisted death.
But the bill, the third such to have been introduced since 2011, ultimately failed to convince members it had the appropriate safeguards, particularly in view of the risks of coercion, would be in place.
Despite describing its failure as a “woefully inadequate” response to the suffering and trauma experienced by dying Scots, MacArthur has confirmed he does not intend to reintroduce the bill after the next election, instead indicating it was “time to pass the baton to someone else.”
The result leaves the Isle of Man, and more recently Jersey, as the only parts of the United Kingdom to have passed formal legislation allowing assisted dying, although both provinces await Royal Assent before work can be done to effect it.
The historic vote in Jersey’s States Assembly in February enables terminally ill adults with mental capacity to have an assisted death The timescale for death must be under six months unless the condition is neurological, for example motor neurone disease, in which case it would be 12 months. The legislation provides for the option of a lethal dose to be administered by a doctor rather than self-administration which has been the focus of the debate in England.
In the Isle of Man, the timescales for death is set at 12 months.
In England, the assisted dying bill currently sits in the House of Lords where some 1200 amendments are being pored over. But unlike a government bill, a private members bill cannot be carried over to the next parliamentary session meaning the bill must receive Royal Assent before the end of the current session, which is expected to be in May 2026; a date which is likely to come too soon to see it pass current scruitny.
