Assisted dying

The law in Scotland

There is no specific crime of assisting a suicide in Scotland. But it is possible that helping a person to die could lead to prosecution for murder, culpable homicide or reckless endangerment.

Why the current law does not work

The law in Scotland prevents dying people from asking for medical help to die. People who want to control their deaths face an impossible choice. Some travel abroad to die, at great expense and often earlier than they might like. Others take their own lives at home, risking a painful and gruesome death. The law denies dying people a meaningful choice over how they die.

As a physician, I believe that terminally ill, mentally competent adults should be able to determine the time and place of their death. Had such a compassionate law been passed my mother would not have suffered the pain and indignity caused by a untreatable brain tumour. For her family and friends, her legacy was not of a life well-lived but a lonely death.

Sir Graeme Catto
Scottish doctor & past President of the General Medical Council

No crime of assisted suicide

In Scotland there is no crime of assisted suicide. It is the view of the Scottish Courts that providing assistance to a person with the intention of ending his or her life would not normally attract a prosecution for culpable homicide, so long as the person taking their own life was acting voluntarily. The Courts have also said that the act of helping and accompanying somebody to Switzerland who wished to end their life “would not be criminal if prosecuted in Scotland.

...people who are terminally ill, if they want to go just a bit sooner, they should be able to choose to do so without making anyone subject to prosecution.

Margo Macdonald
Former MSP

Recent attempts to change the law

Landmark cases