It was reported in mid-June that a group of children’s charities had suggested that Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) should consider allowing assisted suicide for children.
The submission to the Holyrood committee looking into the Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill said that MSPs should note that ‘terminal illnesses do not discriminate based on the age of a person and accordingly, neither should health care’.
Yet the submission also insisted that the alliance of charities, called ‘Together’, takes ‘no position on assisted suicide, nor on whether children should have a right to assisted suicide’.
Green MSP Patrick Harvie is now pursuing the Bill, which would allow people with a terminal illness or progressive life-shortening condition to be helped to commit suicide – but only if they are aged over 16.
Disclaimer
The submission made clear that the views expressed in it ‘do not necessarily reflect the specific views of each member organisation’. Members of Together include Save the Children and Barnardo’s.
