DAVE Finlayson is facing the ultimate Catch 22: end his life earlier than he wishes to ensure that he is still fit enough to make the journey to Switzerland, or risk delaying it until he feels his quality of life has become unbearable only to discover he is no longer well enough to travel.
Mr Finlayson, from Dundee, has motor neurone disease. He is among the many Scots with a disabling terminal illness who are facing this impossible dilemma, and who want Scotland to solve it by becoming the first nation in the UK to legalise assisted suicide.
He said: "I hate having to make that choice – go early and lose time or get trapped and suffer.
"I have to be careful with my money because I know I need it for Switzerland and I’m one of the lucky ones who have enough set aside to pay for it. I find it difficult that there is nobody I can talk to about this.
"If the Scottish Parliament could bring in new laws on Assisted Dying it would be an end to all my problems. I’d no longer have to worry about getting trapped, about having to go to Switzerland and I’d not have to worry about suffering."
Mr Finlayson, 67, experienced his first symptoms in 2009 when he said his legs "just felt different" going up and down the stairs, and put twinges down to residual damage from a motorbike accident years before. He was eventually diagnosed in 2015, but still feels well enough to swim every day.
However, the former heating surveyor knows he does not want to live when he can no longer enjoy it.
He said: "It worries me going right down the road. You're paralysed but your mind is still active - what's worse than that? It sounds terrible. That might be okay for some people, but it's not for me."
He also rejected the ethical objections raised by some medical and religious organisations.
"There are states in America where it's been going for years without a problem. So why is Britain such a problem?
"I don't se why everybody has got to be stopped because 'something may happen'.
"I feel with them 'if that's the way you want to go, if that's against your religion', then you don't have to do it. But why should I be dragged into your religion.
"I'd like everybody to have a choice."
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