I don't doubt sincerity of assisting dying campaigners. I simply cannot bring myself to support their position

I was stopped by the gravity of his words and the fear in his voice. What could I say that would come close to making him feel better? Why couldn’t someone wiser than me have been there?

I went, as I usually do, with a joke.

“Well, don’t f****** do it, then, you stupid bastard.”

Eddie smiled and I, sitting on the edge of his hospital bed, pulled him into a hug and asked whether we had a deal.

He began sobbing into my chest and I hushed him, this friend to whom I’d long looked up, as if he were a child.

Almost nine years after Eddie’s passing, I think often of the final weeks of his life, which he spent in Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary.

Those times were difficult for him and those who loved him but also, in their way, beautiful. Thanks to the efforts of the doctors and nurses who cared for him, he lived longer than any of us expected. To employ the cliche, I enjoyed quality time with him. More importantly, so did his partner and his family.

And when his time came, he slipped away.

Eddie remains a presence in my life: I’ll see him in the way a distant figure moves or hear him in the tone of someone else’s voice and be transported back to that hospital ward where, despite the seriousness of the situation, there was almost constant laughter.

Today, I view the chance to spend time with Eddie as he was dying as one of the greatest privileges of my life. I would not trade those days for anything other than his return.

Recently, pals of mine have been through a very similar experience with a dear friend whose final weeks saw her under the care of medics who, despite knowing her premature death was an inevitability, worked tirelessly to ensure that she lived as long as possible, as comfortably as possible. Whatever the doctors and nurses could do, they did.

I’m sure many of you will have similar stories of the care and compassion shown by medical staff who are every bit as empathetic as they are skilled.

I accept, of course, that others will have different experiences of the passing of a loved one. During recent debates at both Holyrood and Westminster, we heard moving testimony from those who support the legalisation of assisted dying. We heard of people desperate to be free of pain, and of families watching loved ones suffer.

I do not doubt the sincerity of those who believe allowing medics to hasten someone’s passing is the right thing to do. I simply cannot bring myself to support their position.

Last Tuesday, MSPs voted in favour of proceeding to further examine Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur’s assisted dying bill.

Success at stage one in the process means McArthur’s proposal will now be examined by Holyrood’s health committee before returning to parliament, at which point a stage three vote will decide whether the law will change to allow medical intervention to end the lives of the terminally ill.

There were cheers outside Holyrood when news filtered through that McArthur’s bill was to move forward. Campaigners in favour of assisted dying were, understandably, pleased.

But for another group of campaigners gathered at the bottom of the Royal Mile, the result of the MSPs’ vote was devastating.

The actor and disability rights campaigner, Liz Carr - in Edinburgh to lobby MSPs on the day of the vote - said the definition of terminal illness in the bill was so broad that it could include people with her condition, arthrogryposis multiplex congenita.

The Labour MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy, a wheelchair user, said she was opposed to the bill because she believed it should be easier to get support to live than to die.

I share that conviction.

While McArthur’s proposal is considered at Holyrood, MPs at Westminster are examining an assisted dying bill brought by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.

We may now be on the brink of a UK-wide change in the law which would permit the state to end the lives of the terminally ill.

Supporters of assisted dying point out that, should it become law, it will not be compulsory. All they want, they say, is to make it an option.

But the legalisation of assisted dying would do more than that.

It would, I am certain, lead to some vulnerable people choosing to die rather than being a “burden” to those they love and would open the door to the impossibly bleak possibility of some being coerced into ending their lives.

The arguments on both side of this difficult debate have been delivered, for the most part, with great dignity. For good reason, it is being treated as a matter of conscience rather than party policy in both the Scottish and UK parliaments.

Inevitably, emotion will be a significant factor in decisions that are made in both Edinburgh and Westminster.

With that in mind, I hope MPs and MSPs will hold in their thoughts the doctors and nurses across the UK who, every day, prolong the lives of the desperately ill, bringing light into the darkest times.

My friend, Eddie, would not have chosen assisted dying but there were times when all hope seemed to have been crushed out of him. I can easily see how someone else facing the end, just as he was, might think it best to speed the process. That thought chills me.

Campaigners in favour of assisted dying talk of the need for people to have a “good death”.

Politicians who’ll decide on this matter should, I think, focus on the need for people to have the best possible lives.