**A right-to-die bill for the terminally ill is to be published at the Scottish Parliament later.**Independent MSP Margo MacDonald, who has Parkinsons disease, has drawn up the bill which seeks to make it legal to seek help to end one’s own life.
It is not illegal to commit suicide in Scotland but helping someone take their own life is.
The MSP wants terminally ill people to be able to ask willing doctors to help them die at a time of their choosing.
The Lothian MSP’s End Of Life Choices (Scotland) Bill would allow people whose lives become intolerable through a progressive degenerative condition, a trauma or terminal illness to seek a doctor’s help in dying.
It is expected to include safeguards to prevent abuses.
Doctors with religious or moral objections would not be obliged to help any patient to end their life.
Pro-life campaigners have strongly opposed the idea.
It will be up to MSPs to decide whether to change the law.
The government and opposition parties have confirmed that there will be a free vote to allow members a conscience vote.
In England, the Director of Public Prosecutions has indicated he is unlikely to take legal action against those who assist the suicide of friends or relatives who have a settled and informed wish to die.
No such guidance has been given in Scotland but Margo MacDonald says public opinion on assisted suicide is changing.