Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill (2013)

Margo Macdonald, an independent MSP who lived with Parkinson’s disease, drafted the Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill in 2012. The Bill would have allowed a person with a terminal, life-limiting or life-shortening disease to end their life after being prescribed with a life-ending medication by a doctor. Sadly Margo died in 2014 and Patrick Harvie, a Green MSP, took over as the Bill’s sponsor. It was eventually debated in the Scottish Parliament in May 2015, where it was defeated in the First Stage debate. While it was comprehensively defeated, the support for the Bill doubled compared to the previous Bill debate at Holyrood in December 2010.