We will keep fighting, pledges MSP after assisted dying vote

An MSP and disability campaigner has pledged to “keep fighting” after assisted dying proposals were backed in an initial vote in Holyrood on Tuesday.

Pam Duncan-Glancy – the Scottish Parliament’s first MSP to use a wheelchair full time – voted against the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill at stage one on Tuesday and has campaigned fervently against it.

Proposed by Scottish Lib Dem MSP Liam McArthur, the legislation would allow terminally ill people to seek to end their lives and was passed by 70 votes to 56 with one abstention following a landmark debate.

But speaking to the PA news agency after the vote, Labour MSP Ms Duncan-Glancy pledged not to give up as she sought to persuade fellow members of the dangers posed by the proposals.

“We fight every day of our lives just to exist, and we never stop fighting,” she said.

“So we’ll continue and we will keep fighting.

“And I fundamentally know that people will understand the serious concerns that we have.

“We will not be able to amend it out of this legislation.”

Ms Duncan-Glancy said she had hoped fellow MSPs would heed the concerns she and other campaigners have expressed, but she seemed heartened by some MSPs pushing for changes to the Bill at stages two and three.

“I had hoped that colleagues would see the risk in this legislation and the message that it could send to people across Scotland about the value they place on people’s lives,” she said.

“But I also heard in the chamber that many people have concerns and some people openly saying that they couldn’t support the Bill as it stands if this was the final Bill at stage three.”

She added: “I think that when they try to amend the legislation to get what they think are the safeguards, they will realise that there is no amendment that can provide the level of safeguard that they want, or indeed that we need as a nation in this legislation.

“So hopefully we will get to a point in stage three where colleagues feel that they are unable to continue to support that decision.”

During the near-five hour long debate on the issue, Ms Duncan-Glancy delivered an impassioned speech where she urged fellow MSPs to “legislate to assist people to live” as opposed to assisting them to die.

She said: “Today I’ve only scratched the surface of concerns, but for me it comes down to this: How can it be possible for people to make a free and equal choice to allow a system that oppresses them so much to also potentially assist them to take their own lives?”

The vote, the third such attempt to advance similar proposals at Holyrood, was described as a “landmark moment” by Mr McArthur.

“This Bill has been a long time coming but, at long last, it can offer that compassionate choice for the small number of terminally ill Scots who need it,” he added.