A PRO-EUTHANASIA doctor has held a workshop on the subject of assisted suicide in Scotland for the first time.
Around 50 people attended a public meeting followed by a private workshop hosted by Australian doctor Philip Nitschke in Glasgow on Saturday.
The doctor, who aided four patients in ending their lives after helping draw up 1996 legislation in Aust
ralia which permitted euthanasia for the first time, showed a video on methods of taking your own life.
The founder of pro-euthanasia group Exit International has attracted controversy during his UK speaking tour, after police held him for nine hours when he flew into Heathrow Airport and one of his suicide workshops was cancelled in Brighton.
Yesterday, the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics (SCHB) criticised his workshop as "extremely irresponsible". However, members of the audience were willing to tell The Scotsman why they were seeking practical advice on how they could achieve a dignified end to their lives.
Jan Robertson, 53, from Larbert, works with people who have motor neurone disease.
She said: "I am divorced, I live on my own, I have no reasons at the moment to want to die but I have realised it would be a more peaceful way to live if I knew I had access to something which would help me die peacefully when the time comes."
Jill Adam, 78, from Perth, nursed her son as he died of a brain tumour. She said: "I do not want people to try to keep me alive. I don't want that to happen to me. I would prefer to die quickly. I live on my own. If I was young, it would be different."
Joan Uys, 58, a retired teacher from Glasgow, said: "I am as fit as a fiddle and having a wonderful life, but I am here because I believe it should be a human right to choose the time and place to end your life."
One 56-year-old woman from Ayrshire, who asked not be named, said: "I have had eight carcinomas (cancerous tumours] in my mouth over 20 years. If I get another tumour and it turns out to be inoperable, and I find myself increasingly ill and in pain, I would like to take something to end my life.
"It would reduce the anxiety for me, knowing I could do it at home in comfort."
Dr Nitschke said he held the workshop because of the UK's "unhelpful" legislative climate.
He said: "It makes sense for an elderly person to develop a practical exit strategy. Then, if their situation deteriorates dramatically, they will be able to take the course of action they wish.
"If they have to ask for help in taking their own lives, anyone who might advise or assist is in danger of breaking the law.
"What people want is the option – they want to know that they are in control, and I can empower them with the knowledge that they need."
Lothians Independent MSP Margo MacDonald has put forward a bill in the Scottish Parliament which, if it becomes law, would allow people to seek a doctor's help in dying.
Yesterday, she said: "People who have experiences of nursing others to the end of life know there comes a point when the patients feel it is intolerable to go on. They would prefer to act rather than let nature take its course.
"They want an insurance policy. It is a natural reaction and people should not be criminalised for doing that."
Dr Calum MacKellar, director of SCHB, said: "For most people, what they want to end is not their life but their suffering. For Dr Nitschke to encourage vulnerable people to think about suicide, instead of seeking psychiatric or psychological help, is extremely irresponsible."
