Scotland Lawmakers Play God in New Assisted Suicide Push
Remnant Recap
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A direct hit on faith and freedom: Scotland’s new bill would force Catholic care homes to choose between violating their beliefs or shutting their doors.
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A danger to the weakest among us: With no requirement that someone be terminally ill, the bill leaves the disabled, lonely, depressed, and financially struggling wide open to abuse.
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A warning about big government power: When the state decides who lives or dies, personal liberty, human dignity, and moral truth get trampled every time.
Scotland is pushing radical assisted suicide legislation that threatens Catholic care homes and vulnerable citizens. Bishop John Keenan warned the bill could force facilities like the Little Sisters in Greenock to allow assisted suicide or shut down entirely.
The proposal has no real safeguards, no requirement that a patient be terminal, and leaves the disabled, elderly, depressed, and financially struggling at risk. Medical advocates and the Catholic Church call the bill dangerous, immoral, and rooted in a false idea of “choice.”
Scotland is currently considering legislation that would legalize so-called “assisted suicide.” This involves a medical professional giving deadly drugs to someone to kill themself. The Catholic Church is firmly opposed to assisted suicide.
Bishop of Paisley John Keenan recently warned the bill “means Catholic care homes like the Little Sisters in Greenock will now have to allow assisted suicide in their homes or face defunding or closure.”
He urged citizens to contact Parliament to voice their opposition in a November 21 Facebook post.
MSP Liam McArthur has been pushing the “Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults” bill since last March. It is currently in Stage 2.
The misleadingly named legislation both opposes assistance for the dying and does not even include a provision to ensure someone is actually terminally ill, according to Bp. Keenan and other experts.
“One of the rejected amendments would have restricted eligibility to those with six months or less to live,” Catholic News Agency previously reported. “Another proposal would have required people who are seeking an assisted death to be provided with a fully funded palliative care support plan.”
“Almost [all of the] vulnerable groups in Scotland representing the disabled, elderly, and mentally ill are against the [bill] and continue to point out how it puts them at greater risk,” Bp. Keenan said earlier this month.
He stated further:
It will also not exclude a person whose primary motivation for their request is among [the] following nonterminal conditions: eating disorders; intellectual disabilities, including but not limited to [Down] syndrome; mood disorders, including but not limited to depression; anxiety disorders; the receipt of any disability or sickness-related benefits, including but not limited to Adult Disability Payment, or any equivalent welfare payment; loneliness or social isolation; financial hardship or low income; feelings of being a burden to others; poor or unsuitable housing conditions; any other mental health condition or developmental disorder that is not a terminal illness.
Care Not Killing, a medical dignity advocacy group, has expressed similar concerns.
“Assisted suicide is inherently dangerous, but there is no need for Scotland to have the most permissive and unsafe legislation in the world,” the group’s CEO, Dr. Gordon Macdonald, said. “At present, Liam McArthur’s bill poses a very real threat to those who are disabled, depressed or have life-shortening conditions but years or even decades of life to live,” Macdonald told Christianity Today.
Photo Credit: Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock
