Two-thirds of Scots believe that the law should be changed to allow assisted suicide, a poll for The Sunday Times has revealed.

Most people said they backed legislation proposed by Margo MacDonald, the independent MSP, to give people who are terminally ill the right to end their lives with the help of a doctor.

MacDonald, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, is to lodge her End of Life Choices (Scotland) Bill in the Scottish parliament next month. So far, it has attracted the support of 21 MSPs.

A poll of 1,000 people by Cello MRUK — the first test of public opinion on the proposals — asked whether the law should be changed in Scotland to allow doctors to help people with chronic illness who want to die to end their lives: 68% said yes, 8% said no and 24% said they did not know.

Support for a change in the law was highest among people aged 35-44, 78% of whom backed MacDonald’s proposals.

Among those aged 45-54, 55-64 and 65 and over, support for the bill stood at 77%, 73% and 63% respectively. An equal proportion of men and women supported a change in the law.

The proposed legislation would allow people with degenerative conditions, terminal illnesses and dependent trauma victims to seek the help of a doctor to end their lives without fear that the relatives or carers who assist them could be prosecuted. Patients would have to request the services of a suitably registered doctor, who would have to seek the opinion of a specialist on each patient’s capacity to make such a decision. Medics with religious or moral objections would be able to opt out of the arrangement.

Earlier this year, Keir Starmer QC, the English director of public prosecutions, issued new guidance clarifying the law on assisted suicide in England and Wales. The guidance established the circumstances under which people who help terminally ill relatives to die are unlikely to be prosecuted.

In Scotland, where there is no specific offence of assisting suicide, relatives can be charged with the more serious offence of culpable homicide.

Asked whether people in Scotland should have the same assurances as those in England that relatives can help loved ones with terminal, progressive or irreversible illness such as cancer or MS with less fear of prosecution, 69% said yes, 11% said no and 21% didn’t know.

People aged 35-44 were most likely to support such a move (77%). Among those aged 45-54, 55-54 and 65 or over, support stood at 76%, 72% and 66% respectively.

MacDonald said that she hoped the poll’s findings would encourage MSPs who she knew were privately sympathetic to “break cover” and back her bill.

“This poll demonstrates that there is a consistency of people in support of the idea of the individual being able to determine for themselves that life has become intolerable and to seek assistance to bring it to an end,” she said.

“The longer the debate goes on and the more proof there is that the right to end your life is supported by a clear majority of voters, the more confident I am that the bill will become law.

“I know there are a good number of MSPs who agree with me but who haven’t yet gone public because they have been affected by the campaign against the bill. However, I hope they will be influenced by the views of the voters, reflected in this poll, rather than by any outside lobby.”

The private member’s bill proposed by the Lothians MSP was formally supported by 21 MSPs from most parties at Holyrood earlier this year, meaning that the proposals have to be investigated by parliamentary committees and debated by the full parliament.

Assisted suicide is legal in Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Oregon in the United States. Although it is not explicitly permitted in Switzerland, there is no law prohibiting it and several clinics have been established that have assisted more than 100 terminally ill Britons to end their lives.

The last attempt to table an assisted suicide bill at Holyrood, by the Liberal Democrat MSP Jeremy Purvis in 2005, failed because he secured only 12 MSPs’ signatures in the face of a concerted campaign against the measure from medical and religious organisations.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland said: “This poll reflects the concern that many people have about end-of-life issues. They are concerned about themselves and those around them dying and the conditions under which they will die.

“The worry with Margo MacDonald’s bill, however, is that its scope is so wide that I wonder whether people know what they are signing up to. Some of her proposals have even been rejected by some proponents of euthanasia.

“While we cannot force people to vote a certain way on assisted suicide, it is prudent to be clear about what they are signing up to and not to be carried away by sentiment.

“The changes the Bill would introduce are dramatic and the chances of its being misused are enormous.”

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