On 13 May, Holyrood will vote on the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, proposed by Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur. While the bill’s rhetoric centres on compassion, choice, and dignity, it opens a door that Scotland—and the United Kingdom—should be deeply cautious about walking through.
The proposed legislation allows mentally competent adults aged 18 and over, with a terminal illness, to request medical assistance to end their lives. It echoes the model used in Oregon since the 1990s and, more recently, adopted in Australia and New Zealand. McArthur insists it is safe, dignified, and limited. But history has taught us that such reassurances often have an expiry date.
From “Compassion” to Coercion
We must learn from the evolution of other so-called compassionate reforms. Gay marriage, once framed simply as a plea for equal treatment, now finds its legacy weaponised against dissenters. Disagree publicly with drag queens reading to schoolchildren, and you’re branded a genocidal bigot. The original appeal was hard to argue against; the eventual implications were impossible to predict.
We risk the same with assisted dying. Today, it is presented as a last resort for the terminally ill. Tomorrow, without firm cultural and legal guardrails, it may become something far darker: an expectation. A duty. A solution.
The moral lines blur when the state signals that some lives are no longer worth living. What is “terminal”? What is “mental competence”? Definitions are flexible—politics has shown us that. And when two doctors suffice to authorise death, we must ask: which doctors, under what ideological pressures, and influenced by which political agendas?
Who Decides Who Deserves to Die?
Alisdair Hungerford-Morgan of Right To Life UK rightly criticises the bill for its “irreparable flaws” and “worryingly loose” definitions. Fr Gerry Maguiness, speaking for Scotland’s Catholic bishops, echoes a more profound ethical concern: once killing is permitted under law, the principle is broken. Society begins to treat life as conditional, granted or revoked by criteria that shift with political fashion.
The Scottish Association of Mosques has also raised an alarm. This is not merely a Christian objection or a conservative one. It is a cross-cultural defence of something fundamental: that life is sacred, and our response to suffering should be care, not elimination.
Yes, the bill allows MSPs a free vote. However, freedom for parliamentarians does not equate to freedom for society. The real question is not whether a suffering person can request death, but what message this sends to the elderly, the lonely, the disabled, and those with mental illness. When medical death becomes a sanctioned option, it may start to seem like a moral obligation.
Compassion Without Culture is Dangerous
The Homeland Party does not take a reactionary view. We understand the suffering faced by those with terminal illness and respect the longing for dignity. But we also recognise that when laws are crafted in a culture lacking philosophical grounding—when natural law and moral continuity are discarded—then “compassion” becomes a hollow term, easily redefined by bureaucrats and activists.
Assisted dying is not just a policy proposal. It is a statement about who we are as a people. Do we stand for a culture that upholds life, even in suffering? Or do we slide into a bureaucratised death ethic, where the vulnerable are quietly encouraged to “do the decent thing”?
The Slippery Slope is Not Hypothetical
Let us be clear: slippery slopes are real. Oregon’s model began with terminal illness; it has since seen debate over including dementia, psychiatric disorders, and even “existential suffering.” In Canada, medically assisted death is already being discussed as a response to homelessness and mental distress. Where does it stop?
The question is not whether this bill is well-intentioned. The question is what follows once the door is opened.
Conclusion
In matters of life and death, we cannot afford naïveté. We must not judge laws solely by how they begin, but by where they lead. Scotland must not become the latest test case in an international trend that treats dignity as synonymous with disposal.
This is not just a political choice. It is a civilisational one.
