Almost seven in ten Scots believe that access to care should be improved for people with disabilities before any assisted suicide Bill should become law, new polling has revealed.
The poll, commissioned by disability advocacy group Not Dead Yet UK, revealed that 69% of Scottish adults agreed that the Scottish Parliament should prioritise improving access to care for people with disabilities before an assisted suicide Bill would be introduced. Only 18% of Scots disagreed.
For respondents who had a disability, the percentage who agreed that access to care should be improved before an assisted suicide Bill is made law rose to 72%.
The polling revealed that 66% of respondents believe that some people with disabilities might feel a sense of responsibility to seek to end their lives by assisted suicide if they felt they were a burden on family, friends, or society.
Additionally, 62% of respondents believe that people with disabilities who are struggling to access health and social care or other support may be more likely to seek to end their lives by assisted suicide if the Bill were to become law.
A further 66% of respondents were concerned that, as the Bill stands, people with disabilities could be coerced into ending their lives by assisted suicide.
In addition to this, 86% of respondents stated that the views of people with disabilities and the organisations representing them should be properly taken into account when deciding whether to make this Bill law – something that opponents of the Bill have been arguing isn’t happening.
Mike Smith, spokesperson for Not Dead Yet UK, stated that this polling highlighted the concerns that the majority of Scots have about what would happen to vulnerable people if the Bill were to become law.
“It’s clear from this polling that a significant majority of Scots agree that disabled people’s lives will be threatened if this legislation is passed”, Smith said.
“In an environment where people struggle to access the health and social care they need to live a life with dignity, this is not the right time to be risking people’s lives”, he added.
Reacting to the polling data, the former Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson, who now sits in the House of Lords as Baroness Grey-Thompson, said that the lives of people with disabilities were “under threat” from the Scottish assisted suicide Bill, and that the polling shows that “the majority of the public know that”.
“Making assisted suicide legal in Scotland will have a psychological and practical effect on the lives of disabled people, posing a very real risk to the quality of life of Scotland’s disabled population”, she said.
“The difference between people who are thought to be terminally ill and people with different disabilities is often blurred, especially if those disabilities require regular management or treatment. In some cases, failing to manage a disability could make some ‘terminally ill’ in the relevant sense and eligible for assisted suicide under the proposed Scottish Bill”, Baroness Grey-Thompson added.
She said that the state “should be offering support for such people and those who feel they cannot cope with their circumstances, not offering them assistance in ending their lives”.
The revelations come just ahead of the final vote on the Scottish assisted suicide Bill, which will take place on Tuesday evening (17 March). The Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, which was introduced by Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur, would legalise assisted suicide for adults resident in Scotland.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “It is clear that people are concerned that the Scottish assisted suicide Bill would negatively impact people with disabilities, especially as so many people are not easily able to access health and social care or palliative care”.
“This polling reveals that people with disabilities are particularly concerned about the dangers that this Bill poses to them, reiterating what disability advocacy groups have been saying about assisted suicide for a long time”.
“It is clear that this Bill is not safe. Members of the Scottish Parliament should keep people with disabilities at the forefront of their thoughts and vote against this Bill on Tuesday”.
