Scottish MSP proposes assisted suicide ‘buffer zones’ to prevent people changing their mind on suicide

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An amendment, proposed by a Scottish MSP, seeks to provide “buffer zones” around facilities that provide assisted suicide, thus making it a crime for someone to seek to persuade a loved one from not ending their lives. 

According to Right to Life UK, the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, currently going through the Scottish Parliament, seeks to make assisted suicide legal for anyone above the age of 16 living in Scotland, who are terminally ill and deemed mentally capable. However, the bill does not provide a prognosis requirement for eligibility for assisted suicide. 

Scottish Greens MSP, Patrick Harvie, proposed a new amendment to the bill that would create “buffer zones” around facilities that provide assisted suicide, in order to prevent someone seeking assisted suicide from being persuaded otherwise. This would make it a crime to “influenc[e] the decision of another person to be provided with, provide or facilitate the provision of [assisted suicide]” as well as “preventing or impeding another person from being provided with, providing or facilitating the provision of [assisted suicide]”.

Therefore, this could make it a crime for someone to persuade a loved one from not opting for assisted suicide if they are within the buffer zone. This amendment could also prohibit suicide prevention literature from being provided at hospitals, care homes or general practices. 

This move, however, has received criticism, with Scottish councillor, James Bundy, calling these buffer zones, “silence zones”.

He said that these buffer zones, “would not be confined to a few clinics, they would blanket much of Scotland. They would, in practice, become silence zones – places where the natural moral conversation of care and concern is suspended by law”.

“It would appear to make it illegal to ask, ‘Are you sure?’ to someone considering assisted suicide within a buffer zone”, he added.

“Suicide prevention in Scotland is about to get a lot harder,” said palliative care doctor, Dt Cajetan Skowronski, adding that the amendment would “ban you from talking someone out of ending their life.”

Gordon MacDonald, Chief executive of Care Not Killing, an organistion that opposes assisted suicide, said that this amendment could “create censorship zones in large parts of the country”.

“We could see, in theory, buffer zones of 200m round the homes of the vast majority of patients. Family members, doctors, priests, nurses or anyone else who in any way seeks to influence the patient not to commit suicide risks being criminalised, “ he said. 

“Priests might be banned from giving the last rites or a church nearby might be banned from holding a public meeting on the subject of assisted suicide,” he continued. “A GP surgery near a care home might have to take down the Samaritans poster from the notice board in the waiting room. It could ban a family member from crying.”

Author of the assisted suicide bill, Liam McArthur also said that he was “sceptical of the need for such a provision in this Bill”. 

Catherine Robinson, the spokesperson for Right to Life UK said that “This amendment, if accepted, will only make a bad Bill worse”.

“Ordinarily, if we know someone is considering suicide, we accept it is our duty to stop or dissuade them as far as possible.” she continued. “This is an extreme form of attempted state-overreach and just as callous”.

“This terrible Bill and amendment should not become law”.

A few weeks ago, Life Institute reported on the testimony of Cecil Harper, a man from the UK who is outliving his terminal cancer diagnosis by four years. During his interview, shared by Christian Concern, Harper said that those who are at a very low point and in pain could feel like they want assisted suicide.

“You may think that’s what you want and if it’s there for you, you may miss out on the fact that you could come through that, get through that, and get better,” he said.

But when asked what he thought those dealing with a terminal illness need he said that  “They need a reason to live.”

“My family are routing for me so much,” he continued. “They want me to be around. There’s been times when I felt like I wanted to, could have given up, but because I know that my family, my offspring, they are all routing for me, that makes me want to live as well. And the faith that I have, that I can put my worry onto the Lord.”

Harper’s testimony is not the only one that sheds light on how many people can feel like they want assisted suicide, but with the right support can change their mind. In another video, Mark Davis Pickup, a man who suffers with MS, shares his story saying that he would have opted for assisted suicide during his lowest moment had it been available, but it was his family that helped him to find new meaning in his life after his disability diagnosis. 

“Sure people want to die when in their deepest crisis, but we don’t help them kill themselves. We surround them with the love of a community, we try and help them find meaning and purpose in their lives again, even when they’ve lost sight of their own purpose,” he said. 

Sandra Parda of the Life Institute commented, saying “This is an appalling amendment, and it should speak volumes that even the author of the assisted suicide bill is ‘“sceptical” about it.”

“Reiterating what others have said, it is only natural that if someone seeks suicide, for any reason, that we try to persude them otherwise and help them find meaning in their lives again.”

“Those who have received a terminal diagnosis or a permanent disability, have testified that at their lowest moment they would have considered assisted suicide, but rediscovering purpose in their life is what gave them the will to keep on living. This is what we should be doing for people and no law should make it illegal to help people during a dark moment in their lives in favour of killing them.”