The Assisted Suicide Bill is very near to the rocks in Scotland. 86% of MSPs who expressed an opinion during a speech in the debate on the McArthur assisted suicide Bill during the Stage 3 debate today spoke against the assisted suicide Bill.

An analysis of the speeches on day one of Stage 3, completed by Right To Life UK’s Policy Team, found that of the 21 MSPs who made speeches and took a position on the Bill, 18 (85.7%) spoke against it and 3 (14.3%) spoke in favour of the Bill. This represents six times the number of MSPs speaking in opposition to the Bill compared to those who supported it in their speeches. The Government Minister did not take a position in his speeches.

The overwhelming opposition to the Bill among those speaking at the Stage 3 debate follows the news yesterday that the Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, Russell Findlay MSP, had dropped his support of the Scottish assisted suicide Bill, vowing that he will now vote against it as “the risks are too great”.

This now means that the leaders of the three largest parties in Holyrood are opposed to the assisted suicide Bill.

If just seven of the MSPs who voted for the Bill at Stage 1 switch their stance and vote against the Bill at the final vote at Stage 3 next Tuesday 17 March, it will be defeated.

Russell Findlay MSP joins two MSPs who have already publicly indicated that they will be changing their vote from supporting to opposing the Bill, and according to media reports, others are set to follow. 

Only four more MSPs have to move from supporting to opposing the Bill for it to be defeated.

Supporters of the McArthur assisted suicide Bill rejected a number of sensible amendments to the Bill today.

Those rejected included amendments to:

• Only permit assisted suicide for terminally ill people who are suffering (Amendment 136 by Daniel Johnson)
• Require a person to have been offered palliative care options before being eligible for assisted suicide (Amendment 138 by Douglas Ross)
• Protect vulnerable people with a history of suicidal thoughts or self-harm (Amendment 139 by Douglas Ross)
• Ensure an opt-in register for medics involved in assisted suicide, protecting conscience (Amendment 142 by Miles Briggs)
• Ensure a pregnant woman could not go ahead with assisted suicide (Amendment 137 by Sue Webber)

Radical supporters of the McArthur assisted suicide Bill also voted to approve an amendment (107) tabled by Liam McArthur to remove the provision in the Bill (Section 18) that provides conscience protections for health professionals.

The decision on whether there will be conscience protections in the Bill and, if so, how they will operate, will now be handed over to Westminster. There will be no accountability or oversight from MSPs and those who will be directly affected by the Bill if it becomes law.

In a joint letter to Holyrood, several medical and professional bodies have warned that removing the “no duty to participate” and employment protections from the primary legislation would weaken transparency and robustness, and leave key matters to a process with limited parliamentary scrutiny. 

The signatories included the Association for Palliative Medicine (Scotland), RCGP Scotland, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

Abortion pills pose a very real danger to the very women the pro-death lobby claim they help. A new investigation into how abortion pills are used in the United States adds to the growing body of evidence that the abortion lobby’s favored method of preserving “access” is dangerous to the very women they claim to help.

According to the FDA, since 2000, approximately 7.5 million women have taken the abortion pill to end the life of the child in their womb in the United States. The FDA identified thirty-six deaths of women associated with the abortion pill. The FDA caveats this by stating, ‘The adverse events cannot with certainty be causally attributed to mifepristone…’

But campaign group Live Action detail two examples of young women who died shortly after receiving abortion pills, Holly Patterson and Alyona Dixon, as well as two who suffered severe adverse reactions, Shanyce (septic shock and an infection requiring a partial hysterectomy) and Leslie Wolbert (severe pain and bleeding followed by the psychological trauma of delivering and flushing her baby).

In 2017, the United States saw the end of a long-term decline in abortions, with numbers beginning to tick upward once again each year, By 2020, abortions had increased nearly 8% from 2017. In February of 2025, Guttmacher Institute’s estimated abortion data analysis revealed a whopping 648,500 abortion pills sold in 2023 alone, which translates to an abortion pill count of 54,042 monthly, 1,777 daily, 74 hourly, and one abortion by pill every 49 seconds in 2023.

A study from September 2025 quoted authors affiliated with the Guttmacher Institute asserting that telehealth abortion ‘has contributed to the overall increase in abortions in the US. Based on a conservative estimate of 63%, it is projected that more than 664,000 abortion pills were utilized in 2024.”

Phone calls to Planned Parenthood locations inquiring about abortion pills reveal that no meaningful review occurs before the abortion giant agrees to mail out abortion pills; the age of an unborn baby is not checked, medical contraindications are not screened out, counselling is not done beforehand, follow-ups are not performed, and pills will even be mailed to alternate addresses to avoid parents discovering them.

“By failing to require any safety measures, Planned Parenthood (and other abortion pill vendors) functions as a drug dispensary instead of as a medical provider for patients,” Live Action says. “This process is putting women at increased risk should they experience any abortion pill-related complications, including hemorrhage, incomplete abortion, or life-threatening infection.”

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ekqISZckM-U

The effort to push state-sanctioned murder on Scotland is now in serious trouble. The whole plot now sits on a knife-edge. he Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party has dropped his support of the Scottish assisted suicide Bill, vowing that he will now vote against it as “the risks are too great”.

Russell Findlay MSP previously supported the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, which, as written, would legalise assisted suicide for adults resident in Scotland with no prognosis requirement specified; however, he now opposes the Bill due to numerous concerns with it.

This now means that the leaders of the three largest parties in Holyrood are opposed to the assisted suicide Bill. 

Findlay is the third MSP who supported the Bill last year to now oppose it, meaning that if only four more MSPs change their minds and commit to voting against the Bill, it will fail. 

Findlay said that he changed his mind about the Bill due to “numerous” concerns about the Bill that have not been addressed.

He stated that one of the key concerns he has with the Bill is “the real risk that people could be coerced into ending their own lives”. 

“There are already cases in which unscrupulous relatives, or ‘trusted’ medical or legal professionals, exploit elderly people for financial gain”, he said, adding, “And even without any coercion from others, some elderly people may feel pressured to end their lives because they think they have become a ‘burden’ on loved ones”.

Findlay said that he was also concerned that it would be “inevitable” that the eligibility criteria for assisted suicide would expand following legal challenges. 

“We have seen examples of this ‘slippery slope’ in other jurisdictions, and I would be deeply uncomfortable at being responsible for legislation that might end up mutating beyond its original remit to, for example, allowing someone with a mental health condition to compel the state to prematurely end their life”, he said.

Who is paying for the wave of assisted suicide propaganda which has hit Scotland in recent days?

The well-funded assisted suicide pressure group Dignity in Dying has taken out full front-page adverts in multiple Scottish national newspapers, lobbying for the Scottish assisted suicide Bill, prompting a major backlash, amidst concerns that the adverts promote and sanitise suicide.

The adverts, which appeared as the front page of The Herald, The Scotsman, and The Metro, caricature suicide as a “choice”, and do not even make it clear that they relate only to suicide for the terminally ill, prompting criticisms that they glamorise suicide more widely. 

Consultant psychiatrist and former Chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Eating Disorder Faculty, Agnes Ayton, simply asked “Why is this allowed?”

Dr Cajetan Skowronski, a geriatric and palliative care doctor, also criticised these adverts, urging people in Scotland to “Say no to NHS suicide”.

Attorney Erwan Le Morhedec said that the amount of money behind the pro-assisted suicide lobby enabling these adverts was “staggering”, arguing that it amounted to “pro-euthanasia propaganda”.

Who is paying for it all, given that a clearly majority of Scots are, at the very least, sceptical about the proposals?

There are three main most likely culprits: The Open Society Foundation, now run by George Soros' son Jonathan; Big Pharma and aobort-for-profit businesses, both of which are constantly looking for new 'profit centres', and, third, the government/civil service, pushing to reduce the welfare bill by encouraging the elderly and the sick to commit suicide.

An appalling ruling in favour of abortion has exposed how - despite Dobbs and the presence of pro-lifers in various high offices - the United States of America is still desperately sick. An Indiana judge has just blocked the enforcement of the state’s abortion ban on the grounds that abortion is a necessary exercise of “religious” beliefs.

In a Thursday court ruling, Marion County Superior Court Judge Christina R. Klineman issued a permanent injunction against Indiana’s abortion ban, which allows exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or “medical emergencies” in the first 10 weeks or fetal anomalies “incompatible with sustained life” up to 20 weeks. 

She ruled on behalf of anonymous plaintiffs, including a Jewish woman who believes that “life begins” after birth, and that “the health of a pregnant woman, both physical and mental, must take precedence over the potential for life embodied in a … fetus.” Another plaintiff believes we should “not harm other humans or this community of humanity,” but also that life does not begin at conception, that “a fetus is a part of the body of the mother,” and that “bodily autonomy that should not be infringed upon.”

These so-called “religious beliefs” may entail the idea that a human life does not necessarily constitute a “person” with rights, but it is a scientific fact that human life begins at conception. As soon as the mother and father’s genetic material combine, a unique, complete genetic blueprint is present in the chromosomes of the newly formed zygote-stage individual, whose sex, eye shape and color, hair color, and even physical mannerisms are already “in writing” in their DNA.

Despite their anti-scientific and anti-life basis, Klineman accepted the plaintiffs’ beliefs that an unborn baby should be killed to preserve the “health” of the mother as a legitimate expression of “religion.”

“The state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act bars a law that substantially interferes with class members’ religious beliefs that a pregnant person’s mental or physical health takes precedence over that of a zygote, embryo, or fetus,” Klineman concluded.

“The abortion law would allow a plaintiff to seek an abortion if her pregnancy were the result of rape, but not if it were mandated by her religious beliefs. The state has not justified this differential treatment by establishing that its interest in the same prenatal life changes based upon the reason for terminating a pregnancy,” she continued.

Indiana Right to Life president and chief executive officer Mike Fichter decried the ruling on Friday in a statement:

For the court to rule that taking the life of an unborn child is an exercise of religious freedom is deeply distressing — and a perversion of the law’s intent.

Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act was never intended to equate taking the life of an unborn child with religious expression in our state. While this current injunction is limited to the plaintiffs in the case only, if it withstands challenge, it will be exploited so anyone claiming a spiritual belief, even if personal and non-theistic, can justify taking a child’s life.

We are encouraged by Attorney General Todd Rokita’s immediate move to appeal this injunction and pray it will be stayed during the appeal process.  

The Satanic Temple in Indiana has also challenged the state’s pro-life laws in court on the basis that abortion prohibitions violated the group’s rights under the state Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Judges defied their challenge not because abortion was not considered a genuine exercise of religion but because the Satanic Temple did not have “standing.” Judges upheld in January a lower district court ruling which concluded:

A committed pro-lifer has just been appointed US Secretary of State for Homeland Security - their equivalent of the Home Office. President Donald Trump has named conservative Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin to replace Kristi Noem in the post.

Mullin, a father of six, including three adopted children, has a strong pro-life record, having supported a national ban on abortion and opposed abortion even in cases when the life of the mother would allegedly be threatened.

Abortion, the destruction of an unborn child in his or her mother’s womb, is never necessary to protect a woman’s health, as medical experts have attested.

“As a Christian and an adoptive father, the fight to protect life is a personal one,” he said in response to the reversal of Roe v. Wade. “In Oklahoma, we’re already saving lives, but we cannot stop fighting until all of God’s children have a chance at life.”

Mullin has also pushed back against LGBT ideology, including “gender transitions” for minors, and voted against the 2022 pro-LGBT “Respect for Marriage Act.”

108 babies were born alive and left to die following failed abortions in Ireland between 2019 and 2023, according to new data published by the health service.

According to reports, the figures released by Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE), following a parliamentary question asked by Independent Teachta Dála (Member of Parliament) Mattie McGrath, show that 29 babies were born alive after a failed abortion and subsequently died shortly afterwards in 2023, the most recent year for which data were available. There were 23 deaths of this nature in 2022, 14 deaths in 2021, 25 deaths in 2020, and 17 deaths in 2019; a total of 108 across these five years.

Furthermore, four of these babies were more than 24 weeks gestation and/or weighed more than 500g, in addition to not having been diagnosed with a major disability, meaning these babies may have been able to survive outside the womb.

Abort-for-profit ginat Planne Parenthood has been hit so hard by being cut off from Medicaid payments that its 'clinics' are offering Botox injections a much-needed additional source of income.

Planned Parenthood is in desperate need of new revenue streams after President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill blocked the abortion giant from receiving federal Medicaid reimbursements.   

As a result, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (PPMM) — the organization’s largest affiliate that serves a vast area spanning Northern California and Nevada — has been forced to scramble to plug an estimated $100 million revenue gap, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). 

What is unsaid in the WSJ puff piece is that PPMM needs to generate money in new ways in order to subsidize aborting preborn children. 

PPMM has already had to close five facilities, reduce the number of programs it offers, and lay off about 15% of its staff. 

And PPMM isn’t relying solely on Botox to boost its balance sheet. 

“Now, along with access to birth control, abortions and testing for sexually transmitted infections, patients can order an IV hydration after a night of drinking — or smooth crow’s feet. They might soon be able to get laser hair removal and cosmetic fillers,” the Journal reported. “The centers are also adding nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, for intrauterine device insertions. And they are launching a telehealth concierge program for perimenopausal care, named Poppy after California’s state flower.”

“We’ll never fill this $100 million gap. It’s impossible,” said Stacy Cross, president and chief executive officer of PPMM. “But we have to do everything we can.”

People in Canada are having their lives ended by assisted dying on the same day that requests are made, adding to fears that wrongful deaths may be occurring. 

An official report by the Chief Coroner of Ontario’s Medical Assistance in Dying Death Review Committee (MDRC) highlighted that, in 2023, 65 people in Ontario had their lives ended by Canada’s assisted suicide and euthanasia programme on the same day that they made their requests to do so. A further 154 people had their lives ended the day after their request was made.

These same-day suicides, which comprise both assisted suicide and euthanasia, include the case of Mrs B, a woman in her 80s who suffered from complications following coronary artery bypass graft surgery and who chose to receive palliative care support at home. 

After sharing her desire with her family to end her life through Canada’s euthanasia and assisted suicide programme, her spouse requested an assessment. However, Mrs B informed the euthanasia and assisted suicide assessor she “wanted to withdraw her request, citing personal and religious values and beliefs”, preferring instead to pursue “in-patient palliative care/hospice care”.

After being denied hospice palliative care, Mrs B’s spouse subsequently requested another euthanasia and assisted suicide assessment, which deemed Mrs B eligible for the euthanasia and assisted suicide programme. This approval was granted despite reservations from the first practitioner, who held “concerns regarding the necessity for ‘urgency’ and… the seemingly drastic change in perspective of end-of-life goals, and the possibility of coercion or undue influence (i.e. due to caregiver burnout)”.

Despite this, Mrs B’s request was approved by two separate assessors, and she died the same day. 

Canada’s original assisted suicide and euthanasia law, known as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), passed in 2016, required a 10-day waiting period between requesting assisted dying and being given the assistance to end one’s life.

The Canadian Parliament removed this requirement for individuals whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable” in 2021. There are no specific criteria used to discern whether a same-day suicide should be applicable or not.