Humanist Society speaks out on underhand tactics used by opponents of assisted dying
October 7, 2024
We’ve been having our say on the underhand tactics used by religious opponents of assisted dying to manipulate political and public opinion.
From anti-assisted dying stalls in Holyrood set up under misleading names to spamming government consultations with identical responses, there has been a lot of dishonesty and misinformation to call out over the past few weeks.
Our CEO Fraser Sutherland spoke to the National about the huge number of near-identical responses to Liam McArthur MSP’s assisted dying bill received from overseas. It is highly likely a large number of these responses were submitted by bots. However, the deliberate skewing of the consultation results has led to many news outlets reporting “split opinion” on assisted dying. This is in spite of legitimate poll results continuously showing a large majority in favour.
Fraser also called out the recent use of a stall in Scottish Parliament by Care Not Killing, an evangelical Christian group opposed to assisted dying. The stall was openly used to oppose the assisted dying bill, even though the bill in question is live legislation. The application for the stall was submitted by a separate Christian lobby group, Logos, with no indication of the proposed messaging.
This is part of an ongoing campaign of underhand tactics by reactionary religious voices to manipulate the assisted dying debate. But the public has spoken time and time again. Scotland is ready for moderate, rational, and compassionate assisted dying laws.
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