Former Scottish Green minister Patrick Harvie has come under fire for ‘totalitarian’ plans to set up abortion clinic-style buffer zones around places used for assisted suicide.
The Glasgow MSP has tabled an amendment to the Assisted Dying Bill at Holyrood to give ministers the power to create ‘safe access zones’.
If passed, the legislation would make it a criminal offence for someone to impede, harass, alarm, distress or influence the decision of a person ending their own life.
But with many assisted suicides overseas done at home, critics said the measure could criminalise family members and create ‘censorship zones’ across Scotland.
Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing called it draconian and dangerous.
Even the MSP behind the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill said he was ‘sceptical’.
MSPs approved the general principles of the Bill by 70 to 56 in a free vote in May.
Proposed by Orkney Liberal Democrat Liam McArthur, it would give terminally ill adults the right to ask for a self-taken lethal drug if overseen by two doctors.
Mr Harvie’s amendment is to due to be debated when the Bill returns to parliament next month for line-by-line consideration in committee.
Former Scottish Green party co-leader Patrick Harvey
His idea echoes the protest-free buffer zones created by fellow Green MSP Gillian Mackay through her Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act last year.
That law specified a 200m exclusion zone around hospitals and clinics.
Mr Harvie’s amendment would empower ministers to ‘establish safe access zones’ for premises used for assisted dying, but leave them to fill in the details.
Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing, which opposes the Assisted Dying legislation, warned the plan could ‘create censorship zones in large parts of the country’.
He cited the experience of the US state of Oregon, where 80 per cent of assisted suicides occur at home and added: ‘We could see, in theory, buffer zones of 200m round the homes of the vast majority of patients.
‘Family members, doctors, priests, nurses or anyone else who in any way seeks to influence the patient not to commit suicide risks being criminalised.
‘Priests might be banned from giving the last rites or a church nearby might be banned from holding a public meeting on the subject of assisted suicide.
‘A GP surgery near a care home might have to take down the Samaritans poster from the notice board in the waiting room. It could ban a family member from crying.
‘Yet there has been no evidence of harassment of people applying for assisted suicide or euthanasia anywhere in the world.
‘Patrick Harvie reveals his true colours with such a Draconian, dangerous, selfish, unnecessary and totalitarian proposal.’
Mr McArthur said: ‘I welcome the fact that colleagues have lodged their own amendments aimed at strengthening and improving the Bill.
‘In relation to the amendment on “safe access zones”, I am not aware of these operating in other jurisdictions.
‘As it’s likely that people who choose to have an assisted death may do so at home and not necessarily in a specific hospital setting, it is difficult to see how this would replicate what we’ve seen with abortion clinics.
‘I will listen to what Patrick has to say but I am sceptical of the need for such a provision in this Bill.’
Mr Harvie said: ‘My amendment will allow Parliament to discuss whether measures might be needed in future to protect people from harassment and intimidation by the same kind of American-funded groups who have targeted abortion clinics across Scotland. I’ll see how the discussion goes before deciding whether to press this to a vote.
‘It is important that if this bill is passed, safeguards are in place to protect those workers providing the service as well as patients.’
