Scotland could become the first part of the UK to allow the terminally ill to seek assistance to end their lives after legislation was tabled at Holyrood.
The introduction in the Scottish Parliament of a Bill to authorise medically assisted suicide has turbocharged a debate that has been going on for centuries. Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Roman philosopher Seneca described suicide as the last defence of the free man against intolerable suffering at the end of life. “It makes a great deal of difference,” he wrote, “whether a man is lengthening his life or only his death…”
The SNP’s health secretary has been accused of putting “lives in danger” by refusing to quit over his £11,000 roaming charges scandal after the second worst A&E waiting times on record.