Assisted Suicide Bill

I see that we are finally to get sight of Margo MacDonald’s bill on assisted suicide. Whilst it will be good to see what is actually being proposed, there will be nothing in it that will help me agree with its first principle, that essentially we are all autonomous individuals whose lives are in the last analysis unconnected to others. Our humanness is intrinsically bound up in our relationships. It's in our relationships we find meaning and in loving and being loved that we flourish.

I am also deeply worried that, no matter how hard legislators work at “protecting” the innocent from being abused, some-one will try to find a way round the law for their own ends. It would be better to leave the law as it is than to approach it from the view that says it's ok to help some-one end their lives and we’ll try to make sure that we protect those who might be abused,(lose their lives!), by our laws, which we know, can never account for every circumstance.