A terminally ill Scot who is planning on travelling to Dignitas to end his life in the coming weeks has called on MSPs to introduce "safe, compassionate legislation" that would allow people to die at home.
Richard Selley, 65, from Perth , said he had become a "prisoner in his body" as a result of Motor Neurone Disease.
Travelling to the Dignitas clinic is Switzerland will cost him £10,000, and he said, if assisted dying was legal in Scotland, it would have "eased many worries and my remaining time would have been dedicated to my wife, family and friends rather than complex admin".
Holyrood has twice considered Bills aims at introducing assisted suicide, with these having brought forward by independent MSP Margo MacDonald and, following her death from Parkinson's disease, Green MSP Patrick Harvie .
But these both failed to get enough support to proceed through the Scottish Parliament.
In 2015, when Mr Harvie's Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill was considered, it was rejected by 36 votes to 82.
With Mr Selley, the former head of Loretto junior school in East Lothian, planning to travel to Switzerland in eight weeks, he said he would dedicate his remaining time to trying to persuade MSPs to change the law.
Writing in The Times he said: "The present laws (and lack of laws) around assisted dying in Scotland are cruel, outdated and discriminatory.
"For the next eight weeks I will work with Dignity In Dying Scotland to change them.
"I am urging MSPs to do what they can to introduce safe, compassionate legislation that would let me, and other terminally ill patients, die at home."
While he said he had received "outstanding care from an army of health professionals" Mr Selley, who can not speak or swallow, said that, faced with the prospect of becoming completely paralysed, he "would prefer to leave this world".
He stated: "To use Brexit terminology, I wish to leave rather than remain.
"I don't want to crash out, so I am hoping to negotiate a swift withdrawal agreement."
He added that making the arrangements to travel to the Dignitas clinic has been a "challenge".
He said: "I had to obtain medical records proving I am terminally ill.
"This has been difficult because my GP was advised by her legal board to refuse my request for an up-to-date report.
"If I make it to Zurich I will need two interviews with Swiss doctors to show I am sound of mind and acting of my own free will, and I have to convince Dignitas that I can somehow administer the fatal drug.
"As I can no longer swallow, it will need to be done via my feeding tube.
"I practise the movement required each night.
"Organising all this is a challenge, particularly as MND has robbed me of speech and reduced typing to snail's pace.
"Dying will cost me £10,000, an amount few Scots in my shoes can afford.
"If assisted deaths were available in Scotland it would have eased many worries and my remaining time would have been dedicated to my wife, family and friends rather than complex admin."
