At our last IRC meeting we endorsed the three statewide ballot questions. Our statement for each question is below:
Ballot Question 1 – Availability of Motor Vehicle Repair Information
As automobiles increasingly become computers with wheels, manufacturers are trying to lock down those computers to limit what we can do with them, and prevent us from diagnosing and fixing our own property.
Ballot Question 1 would require that starting in model year 2015 all automobile manufacturers must, for a price, share diagnostic and repair information with owners and independent repair shops. It would also require that manufacturers provide access to automobile computers in a standardized way.
Ballot Question 1 would increase transparency, lower costs by increasing competition for car repair services and help spur innovation. We urge all voters to support this important ballot question.
Ballot Question 2: Prescribing Medication to End Life
Ballot Question 2, a “Death with Dignity” act, allows mentally competent, terminally ill patients to request a life-ending medicine from their doctor. The patient must be competent and must request the life-ending medication. The physician would be allowed, but not required, to prescribe the medicine. The patient and physician would need to meet a number of different criteria, and go through an extensive series of steps, before the medication could be prescribed and administered. Physicians would be required to report each case to the state Department of Public Health and the Department would provide public access to statistical data compiled from the reports.
Most of the objections to this initiative violate principles of the Pirate Party or have nothing to do with the actual proposal itself:
- Some advocates for the disabled worry that disabled citizens could terminate their own lives out of depression. But depression and disability don’t qualify a patient under the measure: they have to be suffering from a terminal disease, and they must have less than 6 months left to live. Additionally, since 1998, Oregon has had a similar law and based on the statistics gathered, the criticisms of the law have not been born out.
- Some doctors state that their role should be to heal rather than end life, but this measure only applies to terminally ill patients for whom healing is no longer an option.
Because of our firm belief that every person has a right to personal privacy and to control his or her body, we urge voters to vote for Ballot Question 2.
Ballot Question 3 – Medical Use of Marijuana
We firmly believe that every person has a right to personal privacy and to control his or her body and mind and that Marijuana should be treated no differently than alcohol or cigarettes. We urge all voters who believe in personal privacy to support Ballot Question 3 which would end state criminal and civil penalties for the medical use of marijuana by qualifying patients.
That is a great write-up of these three questions. I hope they all pass!
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