Support for assisted suicide losing momentum in Scotland

Support for assisted suicide in Scotland has declined significantly, according to recent polls and research.

The Journal of Medical Ethics Forum has posted an article by Prof. David Albert Jones, Director of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, showing that support for assisted suicide in Scotland has lost momentum and could even be waning.

Meanwhile, three polls conducted by the pro-assisted-suicide group Dignity in Dying Scotland found that the number of Scots who “strongly supported” legalising assisted dying – as it is usually referred to in mainstream media and among politicians and activists in favour of assisted suicide becoming normalised and legally protected – fell from 55 per cent in 2019, to 45 per cent in 2023, and to 40 per cent in 2024.

A similar pattern was seen in a YouGov bimonthly tracker which asked the same question 31 times over five years: “Do you think the law should or should not be changed to allow someone to assist in the suicide of someone suffering from a painful, incurable but NOT terminal illness?” By April 2024 agreement had decreased to 41 per cent.

The Anscombe Bioethics Centre, an internationally renowned Christian bioethics institute, highlights that Scottish politician Liam McArthur’s Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill does not only apply to people with a terminal illness. In fact the Bill makes no reference to being close to death.

It would cover anyone with an advanced progressive condition that would be expected to shorten life if not treated. This could include long term chronic diseases like diabetes. Most people would not think of these as terminal illnesses.

Another opinion poll in March 2024 found that only 47 per cent of Scots wanted their MP to vote to change the law regarding assisted dying. That figure dropped to 26 per cent among Asian communities and to 16 per cent among Black communities. Other surveys demonstrate that when the Scottish public were asked about their top concerns, assisted dying/assisted suicide did not register. It is simply not a priority for voters.

While many of those surveyed say that, on the whole, they tend to support “assisted dying”, far fewer strongly support a change in the law regarding the issue.

Photo: Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur poses for photographs and gives interviews as he publishes his Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill in Edinburgh, Scotland, 28 March 2024. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images.)

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