Chilling wake up call over Scotland's right to die law

• Expert’s warning over ‘death as therapy’ 

Scotland risks turning death into a ‘form of therapy’ under plans to legalise assisted dying.

Legal expert Professor Trudo Lemmens said similar moves in Canada had led to ‘euthanasia’ of the disabled – including a man who developed a bedsore and no longer wanted to be a ‘burden’.

He said the law had radically widened in scope since its introduction in 2016 – with people who have autism and diabetes now being approved for the scheme.

Right-to-die in Canada will also extend to the mentally ill under plans which have raised fears the chronically depressed could end their lives with the help of doctors.

The warning comes after a Private Members’ Bill was introduced by Lib Dem Liam McArthur which would legalise assisted dying.

Professor Trudo Lemmens said a right to die law in Canada had widened with diabetics and autistic people being approved

Research published yesterday suggested that the proportion of Scots voicing strong public support for the reform has fallen sharply from 55 per cent in 2019 to 40 per cent in 2024.

Professor Lemmens, of the University of Toronto, has travelled to the UK to warn against making right-to-die lawful – and instead urged a greater emphasis on palliative care.

He said doctors in Canada had ‘bought into’ right-to-die – which has undermined medic-patient trust.

He said: ‘The medical profession now seems to offer death as a form of therapy.

I supported the first Canadian law on assisted dying but I would not support that law any more, because it is so open to abuse.

It is also open to putting vulnerable patients who are in difficult circumstances at risk of premature death.’

Professor Lemmens said in most cases in Canada a doctor injects drugs to end life which he said was ‘euthanasia’.

Under the proposed legislation in Scotland, terminally ill people as young as 16 would be able to ask for help to end their lives.

The new Bill proposes that adults with an incurable illness can seek a lethal dose of drugs from their GP.

In Canada, there are moves to extend the scope of right-to-die to the mentally ill.

But Professor Lemmens said: ‘People with mental illness [in Canada] are already receiving euthanasia when they have a disability.’

‘If you have a catastrophic accident, and you’re a paraplegic, you probably are struggling mentally with the adjustment to that.

And there is no protection in the system to prevent people in that situation from dying.’

He added that Canada shows how ‘health professionals and institutions can quickly normalise and self-justify practices even when they appear to run astray of the most basic professional standards of care’.

Professor Lemmens highlighted the case of Normand Meunier, 66, who was hospitalised in Quebec with a respiratory virus and developed a severe bedsore which would lead him to seek medical assistance in dying (MAID).

In another case, a judge issued a ruling clearing the way for a 27-year-old woman with autism to receive MAID.

And a man, 23, suffering complications from diabetes was approved for MAID.

Mr McArthur said autism, bedsores or diabetes would not be grounds ‘under the provisions of my Bill’.

He added: ‘This Bill contains robust safeguards.’

Read more