Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Short Survey (BSL) – Call for Views

Overview

About the Bill

The Bill, introduced by Liam McArthur MSP, would allow terminally ill adults in Scotland to request, and, if eligible, be provided with assistance to end their life. It also establishes a process, delivered by health professionals, to enable people in Scotland to legally and safely access assisted dying. This is restricted to those who meet various eligibility criteria set out in the Bill.

To be eligible, a person must:

• be terminally ill
• be aged 16 or over
• have been resident in Scotland for at least 12 months
• be registered with a GP in Scotland
• have sufficient mental capacity to make the request and understand the decision

The meaning of “terminally ill” for the purposes of the Bill is a person who has an advanced and progressive disease, illness or condition from which they are unable to recover, and which can reasonably be expected to cause their premature death.

The Bill sets out preliminary procedural steps that must be taken, and how criteria will be assessed in order for a person to be eligible to be provided with help to end their life.

Part of the process requires that a person must have had health and social care information/options (for example, palliative and hospice care), and information about assisted dying explained to them before they make a final decision on assisted dying.

Two doctors are required to assess a person as being eligible to be provided with assistance to end their own life. Both doctors also need to be satisfied that a person is acting voluntarily, without being coerced or pressured.

If confirmed as eligible, the Bill says that a terminally ill adult can lawfully be provided with an approved substance by a health professional. They can choose to administer this substance to themselves to end their life. Helping someone to die, however, will still be unlawful if it does not follow what is in the Bill.

The Bill also says that it is an offence to coerce or pressure a terminally ill adult into requesting an assisted death.

No one will be required by law to play an active, participative role in the assisted dying process if they have a conscientious objection to doing so. For example, doctors and nurses who disagree with assisted dying would not have to take part.

MSPs on the Scottish Parliament’s Health, Social Care and Sport Committee are looking at the details of the Bill, and they want to know what people think about the Bill.

Knowing your views will help Members assess how to improve the proposed law, and whether the Bill should be passed into law by the Scottish Parliament.

How to submit your views

We are seeking your views on the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill.

This is a BSL-accessible short survey if you want to provide general views and comments on the Bill overall, including whether you support or oppose it and the reasons why.

If you reply to the short survey, neither your individual response nor your name will be published. Instead, we will publish a summary of the responses received, including numerical data on responses to any tick box questions. This summary will not identify you in any way.

If you want to provide detailed comments on individual provisions in the Bill, you can respond to the longer call for evidence, which is in written English.

The purpose of the consultations is not to establish whether more people support or oppose the Bill. It is rather to gather views on the Bill that will inform the Committee’s scrutiny. It is to help the Committee to understand the reasons people have for either supporting or opposing the Bill or specific ways in which they would like to see the Bill amended.

You can respond to each question using written text, or you can send us a BSL video with your responses.

When you answer the questions, please do not tell us your name or the name of other members of your family. Also, please do not tell us anything that could identify anyone else.

You do not need to answer all the questions.

If you are responding by written text, please give us your answers on this platform using the text boxes provided below each question.

If you want to respond using a BSL video, please use a file transfer service and state clearly which question numbers you are referring to in your video. Please send your finalised BSL video file to ADBill@parliament.scot

If you send us a BSL video, we will translate it into written English, and it will be considered by Parliament staff when they are preparing the summary of responses. We will not publish the original video, so your image will not be made public.

You can find more information in English on the Committee’s approach to scrutiny of this Bill and how it will handle information in its written statement on the handling of information and evidence.

This call for views will close at 11.59pm on Friday, 16 August 2024 and no extensions will be given for late submissions.

If you have any questions about this call for views, please email ADBill@parliament.scot or call 0800 092 7500. To contact through BSL, you can call the same number through the Contact Scotland BSL video relay service: contactscotland-bsl.org