GILLIAN McDougall (Letters, 11 June), in her criticism of my statement on behalf of the Free Church of Scotland, writes that it is highly unlikely that any healthy 16-year-old would make a prelimin­ary declaration that they would wish to avail themselves of assisted suicide (under the Assisted Suicide Bill).

In response I would point to the Policy Memorandum to the bill (21) which states: "It is envisaged that some people who support the idea of assisted suicide as a valid end-of-life choice will make such a declaration when they are relatively young and in good health." Making such an option available to young, healthy people would only encourage young people to think of suicide as a valid way out of problem situations.

I would dispute Ms McDougall's view that the bill ensures that only competent, mentally well patients could avail themselves of assisted suicide. No doubt that is the intention, but conditions such as depressive illness may not be easy to detect under the conditions the endorsing medical practitioners would have to work.

I would also maintain that it would be very difficult for the witnesses to the preliminary state­ment and the endorsing medical practitioners to exclude undue pressure, internal or external.

With regard to reports from Oregon and the Netherlands, each context has to be looked at separately and also distinguished from our medical, social and legal context in Scotland. Oregonians, as I learned from evidence submitted on the End of Life Assistance Bill to the Parliamentary Committee, are very independent-minded people. With our NHS and social services under pressure, times of financial stringency and increasing elder abuse, I have no confidence that the bill would not be abused, despite any safeguards.

In the Netherlands it has been shown that people not originally envisaged in the legislation have been euthanised and many people are being euthanised through "terminal sedation" quite apart from the legislative provisions.

The qualifying conditions for assisted suicide in the Assisted Suicide Bill are so loosely worded that there is room for wide inter­pretation. Even then, the Policy Memorandum (54) states "once it [the bill] has been seen to operate effectively for a number of years, there may be an opportunity for further developments in the law that would offer hope to other categories of people seeking assistance to die." This would suggest that the bill is seen as a first step towards wider access to "assisted dying".

The bill is wrong in principle and poorly drafted and should be rejected by the Scottish Parliament.

Rev Dr Donald M MacDonald,

6 Craiglockhart Grove, Edinburgh.