Liam McArthur expects to publish his Assisted Dying For Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill on Thursday, but he is expected to face fierce opposition to his end of life legislation.

The Catholic Church in Scotland, the Church of Scotland and other Christian denominations have repeatedly come out against the proposal.

And MSPs such as Dame Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s health spokesperson, pictured right, has told The Democrat that she has not made up her mind how she will vote on Thursday, although she voted against when it came before the Holyrood parliament previously.

With both Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer pledging to allow a debate on the issue at Westminster after the next general election, Liberal Democrat MSP McArthur said there was now an “increasingly irresistible” momentum towards changing the law.

His member’s bill will be the third time Holyrood has voted on legalising assisted dying, with previous bids overwhelmingly rejected.

But McArthur, speaking on BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show said he believes the “political mood has changed”.

He said: “I am absolutely convinced that this long-overdue reform will pass and that the political mood now is closer to where the public mood has been for so long.”

“I think the momentum behind the case for change is now increasingly, I think, irresistible.”

Mr McArthur said: “The ban on assisted dying at the moment is leading to too many people at the end of life facing horrible, traumatic deaths that impact not just them but those that they leave behind.

“And that is despite the very best efforts of palliative care, which we need to invest in and improve access to.

“But the choice of an assisted death in certain, specific, circumstances is a change that is long overdue.”

He told how his Bill would require two doctors – including one with no prior relationship with the patient – to both confirm the person is terminally ill and has the capacity to request an assisted death.

McArthur also said there would be a waiting period of two weeks between the request and the medication – which they would have to be able to take themselves – being provided.

At the time the medication is given, the medical professional would “also need to satisfy themselves both of the determination of the patient to continue and the fact that capacity was still there at the end”, he added.

Doctors and other members of the medical profession  such as Sister Rita Dawson, matron of the St Margaret of Scotland Hospice in West Dunbartonshire, opposed to the procedure would be able to exempt themselves from being involved.

Mr McArthur stressed this, adding there would also be a requirement for those requesting an assisted death to have lived in Scotland for at least a year beforehand.

While he added that some issues would need to be resolved with Westminster, initial conversations with the Scotland Office about his Bill have been “constructive”, with McArthur adding: “I am encouraged by those early discussions.”

Dr Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing, which is campaigning against the Bill, warned that changing the law “would place the vulnerable under pressure, and possible coercion, to request death for fear of being a financial, emotional, time or care burden”.

He added: “Evidence from the Netherlands, Belgium and Canada shows what starts for people who are terminally ill extends to the chronically ill, from adults to children, from ‘mentally competent’ to those lacking capacity.

“The current law is clear and works as a deterrent, allowing discretion in prosecution and sentencing, tempering justice with mercy.

“Scotland can do better – investing more in palliative and social care.

“MSPs should not opt for the cheap solution of assisted dying by suicide or euthanasia – and I believe they will not.”

Top of page picture: Sister Rita Dawson, a Deputy Lieutenant of Dunbartonshire and Chief Executive of the St Margaret of Scotland Hospice, which practices palliative care,  welcomes the late Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip to the care of the dying establishment in Clydebank.