John Swinney 'wrestling' with assisted dying stance
Scotland’s First Minister has said he is still “wrestling” with whether he believes in assisted dying
It's an incredibly contentious topic.
Here in the states we had two states, Washington and Oregon vote on it more or less at the same time.
Washington banned it in 1991, Oregon approved it in 1994, and it was further complicated by the fact that we share a border.
https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Initiative_119,Physician-Assisted_Death_Measure(1991)
The Oregon legislature referred it back to voters a 2nd time in 1997 in a "hey, are you SURE?" kind of way and we passed it again by an even larger margin.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Oregon_Ballot_Measure_16
Meanwhile, on the Washington side of the border, when court cases blocked the law and it went all the way to the Supreme Court who ruled in 1997 that it's a matter of States Rights and they can do what they want.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/521/702/
Which made it hilarious when people sued to block the Oregon law, it went to the Supreme Court in 2006 and the ruling was (paraphrasing) "Bitch, we told you once!"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Oregon
Washington later reversed their decision in 2008.
https://doh.wa.gov/data-and-statistical-reports/health-statistics/death-dignity-act
It's crazy to me that we don't have sensible right-to-die laws here. I was reading about one somewhere (Sweden maybe? I can't recall now), where there's a cool pod. It was placed in a beautiful forest. Woman was in chronic pain all her life, so she goes in, pushes 3 buttons, a gas painlessly makes her go to sleep and die. The company picks up and cleans up.
It was awesome! Legit we need that here in the US.
IIRC that pod was largely an art installation, but it was apparently legit used just recently?
