Chamber and committees

I do agree. Every possible safeguard should be included in the bill. I have sat in committee both today and last week, watching safeguard after safeguard get turned down, and I am gravely concerned with the direction that the bill is going in.

Experience overseas shows that it is not true that the substance will always work. In countries where assisted suicide has been legalised, there are documented cases where death has not occurred, where people have awoken hours later or where they have lingered in distress. When we legislate for death, we must also legislate for when death does not come, and not doing so is of great concern to me.

Amendment 181 sets out a clear and humane procedure for such cases. I hate talking about such things in such a pragmatic, emotionless way, but my amendment would require a medical professional to take all reasonable steps to preserve life, including, where possible, reversing the effects of the substance, unless the adult at that time and with capacity refuses such an intervention. It would also require that the entire incident be recorded in writing, including details of the substance that is used and the sequence of events.

Amendment 182 would make it explicit that any person who administers further substances to bring about death after the initial attempt has failed will be subject to the existing criminal law on homicide. This is not a theoretical, but a moral, concern. When the state authorises the taking of a life, it must also face the consequences when that act fails. If we are to cross this line as a Parliament, we must at least ensure that, when death does not occur, life is protected, suffering is not compounded and the law does not turn its face away. Amendments 181 and 182 are, frankly, about confronting the reality and seeking to preserve what little humanity we can in a bill that risks abandoning it.

Finally, amendment 183, which I have already talked briefly about, would make it a requirement to record any complications that might arise after taking the substances. It speaks to the uncomfortable gap between how this bill imagines assisted suicide will work and how it has worked in practice elsewhere.

The bill proceeds on the assumption that the substance that is used to end life will do so cleanly, peacefully and without complication, but that assumption is false. The evidence from overseas tells a very different story. In countries where assisted suicide has been legalised, there have been cases of vomiting, choking, fluid filling people’s lungs and, in some instances, of the substance simply failing to end the person’s life. Despite those realities, the bill provides no mechanism to record or report when such complications occur. That is, frankly, an extraordinary omission.

If the Parliament is to sanction the deliberate ending of life, at the very least, it must ensure that the methods used are subject to proper scrutiny and improvement. Every other medical procedure undergoes that. My amendment would do precisely that, and it would require a medical professional to record any complications, adverse reactions or unintended effects arising from the administration of the approved substance in the adult’s medical records, and that an anonymised report be submitted to Public Health Scotland. It is an attempt to limit the harm that the bill might cause.

If Parliament insists on creating a system for assisted suicide, it has a moral duty to ensure that the process is safe, transparent and as humane as possible. Turning a blind eye to complications is not compassion; it is indifference. I want to confront the reality, not idealise it.

Mr Doris—

I will.

I have been aware of a case in Canada in which a family found out that the death of a family member was an assisted death only when they saw the death certificate. Do you agree that your amendment would provide a means for such families to find out a little bit more if they were concerned?

Amendments 253 and 276, which are in my name, discuss the prohibition of dissemination of information relating to the substances used for assisted dying. The bill, as drafted, says nothing about the dissemination of information on the substances used for assisted suicide. There is no prohibition on publishing or sharing details about what those substances are, where to obtain them and in what quantities they should be used, and I believe that such an omission is dangerous.

Vulnerable adults who are suicidal could access the information online and attempt to end their own lives, outside the protections—if they are there—and the oversights of the bill. That runs directly counter to the objectives of the Online Safety Act 2023, which seeks to remove content that encourages or facilitates suicide. In matters of life and death, information itself can be lethal, and we cannot legislate for assisted suicide while leaving dangerous knowledge unregulated.

Amendment 253 attempts to close that gap by prohibiting the unauthorised sharing of information about the substances used in assisted suicide, including composition, sourcing and dosage. The purpose is threefold: to prevent misuse; to ensure strict ministerial oversight of highly sensitive information; and to maintain public confidence in the safety and integrity of the assisted suicide framework. It is a targeted, responsible measure to protect the vulnerable, uphold professional standards and prevent the misuse of lethal information.

I want to speak briefly to Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendment.

I have lodged amendments 176 and 181 to 183 in this group, and I will start with amendment 176.

My remarks on this group might well sound similar to those that I made last week, because these amendments to section 15 seek to address the serious moral and medical flaws in the bill—by which I mean the presumption that the substances used in assisted suicide will always deliver a swift and painless death. Indeed, we have just heard from Jackie Baillie that the Royal College of Nursing acknowledges that there can be unexpected reactions to these substances, and we have to recognise that, too, because experience from other countries has shown that these substances can have severe side effects.

In places where assisted suicide is legal, there have been reports of vomiting, choking, fluid in the lungs, prolonged pain and even cases in which the person did not die as expected. That is not a swift and painless death, but the bill does not require that individuals be informed of those risks before making their decision. I believe that individuals must be fully informed and fully aware of what might or might not happen.

Section 15 deals with the end-of-life process and sets out how a person will be provided with assistance to lawfully end their own life. It is for that person to decide, after completing the second declaration, if, when and where they wish to be given an approved substance, and I believe that they need to be fully aware of every risk and every side effect that might occur. That omission undermines one of the core principles that this Parliament should uphold: informed consent.

Amendment 176 would correct that by requiring the practitioner to inform the adult of any potential side effects or complications, including the risk of pain, and to be satisfied that the adult has understood that information. That would ensure that people are given not simply a choice but an honest choice. It is not about endorsing assisted suicide but about recognising the reality that, if Parliament passes the bill, we have a duty to minimise harm and prevent unnecessary suffering. We cannot allow people to take those substances without their full consent and knowledge of what those substances can do to them.

Amendments 181 and 182 address what is perhaps the most chilling silence in the entire bill: what happens when the substances do not work. Nowhere does the bill explain what a doctor or nurse should do if the person remains alive after taking the lethal dose. That absence is not accidental; it flows from a dangerous presumption that the substance will always work, that death will always follow and that complications will never arise.

You mentioned how clinicians might have concerns about dosage and how that might be affected by a patient’s physical state, which might include their being obese. Surely you agree that recording any complications and how death proceeds will help medical professionals learn and change their methods so that they can, in fact, address some of the issues that you have mentioned.

Thank you, Mr Doris, for letting me come in. The member in charge of the bill has referred to the way in which medical practice operates more generally. However, from all the years that I have been working in healthcare, I am not familiar with any situation in which individual clinicians have been encouraged to do their own thing. Strict guidance and procedures apply to everything, and there are pathways for all sorts of treatments. Do you agree that not having something similar for procedures such as this would not represent medical practice as it operates more generally?

The bill proposes to replace publication schemes with a statutory duty of proactive publication and a code of practice. I will come to you first with this question, Kenneth. What opportunities and challenges do you see in implementing that duty?

It creates a whole new industry.