SNP MSP speaks about Scottish Government’s ‘resistance’ to assisted dying

An SNP MSP has spoken out about the Scottish Government’s “resistance” to looking at the issue of assisted suicide.

Paisley MSP George Adam said while the majority of the public supported moves to enable assisted dying, most politicians were opposed to this.

“There is a bit of resistance from the Scottish Government itself,” he said.

Mr Adam told a fringe event at the SNP conference in Edinburgh about his wife Stacey’s “passionate” support for assisted dying.

She suffers from multiple sclerosis, with the MSP saying: “Stacey could end up in the position where her life, her quality of life, is such that she will probably want to end it at one point.

“I don’t know if that position ever came I would have the strength to let her go. But at the end of the day it is what she wants, what she believes in.”

He spoke out after Heather McQueen from the Dignity in Dying campaign told how her mother died “in pain and distress” because medication could not prevent her suffering.

In her final week Sheena Caskie could not speak, she said, but was able to mouth the word “sore” to tell hospital staff she was in pain.

Ms McQueen also told how her mother would put her hand to her head and motion a gun being fired.

She recalled: “When my mum passed she had her nutrition stopped, so we just had to wait with her as she starved to death, in pain and distress.

“And we watched the fear and horror growing in my mum’s face. And my dad and I are going to carry that with us for the rest of our lives.

“Frankly it just makes me furious, it makes me really, really angry that my mum and countless other people as well have to suffer this kind of cruel and inhumane death because of the views of a small number of people who have the power, including the politicians.”