Our Response To The Assisted Dying Bill

Thursday, 15 May 2025

Following the Scottish Parliament’s vote on Tuesday to push ahead with the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) bill, Inclusion Scotland declared that we will continue to oppose its introduction.

Heather Fisken, Inclusion Scotland’s CEO said:

“Despite the fear and anger that disabled people feel and the clear and unwarranted risks to our lives, we are shocked that so many Members of the Scottish Parliament voted for it.

“We know that when people understand the evidence of how such legislation plays out in other countries, they can change their mind.”

Everyone wants a pain free death and we have a huge amount of empathy with people who have witnessed loved ones dying this way. But this Bill itself has too wide a definition of terminal illness which would include many disabled people.

In other countries, hard won safeguards have fallen to the wayside due to legal challenge. There has also been disinvestment in palliative care, which even now needs much more resources putting towards it.

We will continue to fight this, and other denial of our human rights until MSPs take note of the social and political context disabled people are forced to endure including mounting unmet social care needs and cuts to services, higher costs of living amidst a cost of living crisis, and the hugely detrimental cuts to benefits proposed in the UK Government’s Pathway’s To Work Green paper – all of which can lead to untimely death, and opportunity for coercion.

For these reasons, and in light of other evidence, we hope that the Scottish Parliament carefully considers such evidence going forward and does not continue to publish this potentially damaging bill.

Inclusion Scotland provided a briefing to MSPs ahead of yesterday’s debate and vote, setting out evidence that we have found about why such a law can lead to disabled people’s lives being put at risk. Click here to read the briefing.