Readers’ letters: MSPs take an informed, moving, intelligent and evidence-led approach to Assisted Dying debate
I agree with Adam Morris (‘Informed, moving and intelligent: How Assisted Dying Bill brought out the best in Scotland’s MSPs’, The Scotsman 15 December) that the Assisted Dying debate has done credit to our elected representatives, but I wouldn’t pick out the press conference held on 10 December by MSPs Kate Forbes, Michael Marra and Edward Mountain as an example.
That meeting was disappointing. Mr Marra and Mr Mountain essentially just repeated their questions from last May’s debate, when MSPs voted 70-56 for the general principles of the Bill. These questions – about protections for disabled people, consequences for palliative care, and safeguards against coercion – are important. But being ‘informed and intelligent’ means taking an evidence-led approach to answering those questions, rather than repeatedly using them as a derailing stunt.
Thankfully, other MSPs have done the work. The Health, Social Care & Sport Committee has spent months gathering evidence and considering nearly 300 amendments suggested by their MSP colleagues. These meetings have been less attention-grabbing than the press conference Mr Morris praised. But they have been models of parliamentary scrutiny: wide-ranging, thoughtful and illuminating, with engagement from proponents, opponents, and MSPs genuinely trying to make up their minds by drawing on the rich international evidence available.
That evidence is clear. Disabled people mostly support assisted dying laws. Such laws neither harm disabled people nor devalue their lives. Assisted dying doesn’t damage palliative care provision. Legislation doesn’t increase the risk of coercion, but rather reduces it.
As we approach the final debate, I hope MSPs take an informed, moving, intelligent and evidence-led approach to this important matter.
Professor Ben Colburn, University of Glasgow, Philosophers’ Consortium on Assisted Dying in Scotland
Childish nationalism
The present administration in Scotland will not win any plaudits for its management of our NHS. Much the opposite.
The latest, self-inflicted, problems with doctors’ pay are a case in point. John Swinney boasted of no doctors’ strikes in Scotland but now finds the problems in Scotland are identical to the problems in the rest of the UK. Introducing nationalism into matters such as health is beyond wrong; it is dangerous.
This is the SNP’s weakest point. They appear unconcerned about what is best for the NHS and its patients in Scotland; their only interest appears to be in what England and Wales are doing in comparison.
They must put aside their nationalist childishness and work together with our fellow islanders in making every corner of the UK a healthier and happier place.
Alexander McKay, Edinburgh
Crash on delivery
So the SNP are “delivering for the people of Scotland”, we are regularly told by the great disillusionment at Holyrood.
Between the Scotsman on Saturday and the Scotland on Sunday what they are delivering is beyond belief.
Ferries, roads, prisons at an overspend of £1.3 billion and 67 cumulative years late and the pushing through of energy projects stinks of a communist state in a spiral of decline and denial. Add to this the continued denial of the Supreme Court ruling on Gender and the failure to pay the legal fees as awarded to For Women Scotland shows the level of intransigence they have for “the people of Scotland” and the “Women of Scotland”.
Add in the excellent article from Euan McColm regarding the hopes of Anas Sarwar becoming FM (in contrast to the Brian Wilson lecture on “Sarwar is best choice for FM”) and it sums up the state of politics in this country.
It appears that the views of all leaders except that of the Scottish Tories has been swept under the carpet, with Labour, Greens, LibDems and the SNP all voting for the GRC.
Such is the parlous state of the “representatives” in the parliament, there is no real opposition, therefore look forward to more of the same in May 2026, with the great benefits elections sure to re-elect the politburo of Honest John.
David Millar, Lauder
All that is precious
Saturday’s Scotsman celebrated “The great outdoors in all her glory” with a wonderful double page spread of photographs from around the country. (Sat 27th Dec).
We are in acute danger of losing all these precious places, and glorious views, as our clueless politicians positively encourage, foreign-owned multinationals to carpet our finest landscapes with giant industrial wind machines. The situation is so bad that here in what was historic Banffshire, it is now impossible to take a photograph from the top of Ben Rinnes in any direction without including a windfarm, sorry subsidy farm because that’s what they really are.
From the top of Cairngorm one can see giant towering machines encroaching on the supposedly protected National Park from all directions. Enough is enough!
Here in the North as our Highlands are blighted by thousands of wind turbines, birds, bats and insects are decimated, infrasound and shadow flicker harms local residents, giant pylons and power lines scythe through distraught communities, we are surely entitled to ask – What the hell are they thinking?
George Herraghty, Elgin, Moray
AI predictions
It seems to be the season for peering into the mists of the coming year and trying to pick out which of the seeds of time will grow and which will not in the next twelve months.
Just now the smart money seems to be on Artificial Intelligence taking over more and more functions from homo sapiens. In fact one sometimes gets the impression that the human brain will become redundant and evolution will ensure in time that humans will be born without brains at all.
Fanciful? Of course,- but looking at the political scene - local, national and international- I get the impression that this process is already quite far advanced in some areas.
S. Beck, Edinburgh