Time for ‘pain and misery’ of exports to stop

I AM shocked at Gulf Livestock 1 going down. Loss of lives and 60,000 cows. A noncompliant ship — who is held accountable?

Ministry of Primary Industries directorgeneral Ray Smith and his board have backgrounds in corrections, accounting, journalism, telecom, forestry, science, and biosecurity. Not a veterinarian among them.

Politicians, farmers, stock firms, MPI and anyone benefiting from this — shame on you.

Jacinda Ardern’s kindness does not reflect on our animals and ‘‘clean green’’ image. Keep two pens on the next ship and send this lot with the poor cows — see how they like it.

Come on, New Zealand — put a stop to live animal export.

The Government is reviewing live export, but with GDP at $300 million a year, that is a lot of live suffering. Somewhere, someone is getting rich on a whole lot of pain and misery.

Judy Young

Wanaka

[Abridged]

Rebuilding economy

SO, it’s official: we are now in a recession. One of the key players in any sort of recovery is productivity. We need people to work — workers in productive areas such as the construction industry. The country badly needs more tradesmen; also the forestry sector, fishing industry, workers in the manufacturing sector, infrastructure workers and the farming sector. Where would New Zealand be without our farmers?

These are all highly skilled, productive workers who will play a big part in our recovery.

The country doesn’t need more life coaches, marketing executives, consultants, civil servants, and heaven help us, more politicians. What we need is our workforce to focus on the productive sector to help get this great country of ours back on its feet.

M. Dempster

Mornington ......................................

BIBLE READING: The Lord most high is fearsome, the ruler of all the earth. — Psalms 47.2.

IMAGINE lying on your back all day, unable to walk, unable to even stand up, your right arm your only functioning limb.

You can talk, think, and debate but you’ve lost the ability to read and write.

You are totally reliant on others. You need people to bathe you, dress you, toilet you, change your nappies, cook, clean, launder, read to you, comfort you in the night when you wake, cold or scared.

Your sense of time is scrambled, minutes seem like hours so if your spouse is gone for more than five minutes you think you’ve been abandoned — a fear which is constant.

Your limbs ache, your back aches, you just ache.

Could you envisage living like this for a day or, horrors, a week? How about eight years, three weeks, and one day? That is how long my beautiful, intelligent, funny, caring wife existed in this state, until death finally released her from her misery.

The brain aneurysm didn’t kill her; I believe she finally died from sheer grief and utter despair.

Many times, she expressed the wish that the aneurysm had killed her outright, as it had her mother many years previously. Countless times, she looked me in the eye and said quietly, ‘‘I just want to die’’.

Sorry, dear, you’ll just have to suffer. You have dominion over the life of every species on the planet, but not your own.

Things must change. Get informed about the End of Life Choice Act; it is important.

If you are a person of faith and this faith dictates that you vote No, let me say this to you, and I make no apology for speaking bluntly: You’re a grownup now. It’s time you thought for yourself and formed your own opinions, based on logic, reason, and above all else, compassion.

Peter Flower

Lawrence

WE’VE recently had the unedifying experience of watching and reading opponents of the End of Life Choice Act, using their professional status to spread misinformation and scaremongering — claiming there’s no need for this Act, terminal dehydration and sedation is already available and all that’s necessary. Really? Have they watched loved ones and friends die in this way — some peacefully, some choking and vomiting up their faeces, with tubes emerging from various orifices? Nor have we evidence they’re not conscious of all this.

Hospices can’t assist 6% of their patients who experience severe pain at the end of their lives. That’s between 165 and 330 people in New Zealand who would be eligible to apply for assistance to die, and no sustainable evidence of a shortage of doctors willing to carry out this merciful procedure.

Who, terminally ill and with six or less months to live, in extreme, untreatable pain, would need to be ‘‘coerced’’?

No mention of coercion to be terminally sedated. Disability and/or chronic conditions are not covered under this Act.

So, what is the motivation of those opposing a peaceful and stressfree death for a few of their fellow New Zealanders?

Patricia Butler

Nelson

A COMMON argument for the

End of Life Choice Act is that we treat our animals better than humans by helping them to die.

The major fault with this argument is that we are not animals.

Margaret Newman is a prominent American nurse who has developed the theory of ‘‘health as expanding consciousness’’.

As a young woman, she watched her mother struggle with the debilitating effects of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Newman realised that ‘‘simply having a chronic disease does not make a person unhealthy.’’ She stated that her mother’s life was ‘‘confined’’ by the disease but not ‘‘defined’’ by it.

Her theory asserts that every person in every situation, no matter how disordered and hopeless it may seem, is part of the universal process of expanding consciousness — a process of becoming more of oneself, of finding greater meaning in life, and of reaching new dimensions of connectedness with other people and the world (Newman, 2010).

Most importantly, health, as expanding consciousness, is not defined as an absence of illness.

Yes, being sick, even terminally ill, won’t make a dog a better dog, but it can make us better people.

Voting Yes to the EOLC Bill is to thwart this essential process. And once it is done, there is no turning back. It is to forever deny the sick and those close to them, the fundamental right to experience the freedom of becoming the person they were meant to be.

Ann Singer

Brockville

I NOTE that human life from the very beginning can be assisted through the intervention of medical science. Why, then, is completion of medically assisted death not acceptable to some if the creation of medically assisted life is?

The scientific help to assist in the creation of life (for some) is offered to assist in personal fulfilment just as assisted dying for the terminally ill is an act of compassion — which is a particular human condition.

I would ask those steeped in theology to answer the following question: Was Jesus Christ, while suffering an appalling death through crucifixion, given a measure of assistance to hasten his death while nailed to the cross?

It is believed that a Roman soldier, through an act of compassion, thrust a spear into the side of Christ. Was this assisted dying; albeit by a barbaric act in the context of our standards, 2000odd years later? Would Jesus have thanked the soldier or condemned him for helping end his suffering?

Gerrard Eckhoff

Alexandra

THE End of Life Choice Act has some deeply concerning consequences that are not immediately obvious from one’s first impression.

For instance, if my 18yearold son or daughter were thought to have a terminal illness, they could request euthanasia from any doctor.

This doctor could be newly qualified or have no experience in providing palliative care.

My son/daughter could request euthanasia from two doctors who have not provided care to them in the past.

There is no obligation for this decision to be discussed with any family or friends. There is no requirement for any treatment to have been attempted.

It would be possible for death to occur just four days after a request is made.

It is my view that this Act doesn’t protect our vulnerable youth. Take the time to read the proposed law.

Paula Avery

Christchurch

JOHN Jones makes the claim (Letters, 1.10.20) that

‘‘euthanasia, as encompassed in the End of Life Choice Act, is purely a matter of individual choice that is not potentially harmful for the community at large.’’

All euthanasia legislation risks the lives of vulnerable people but the End of Life Choice Act is particularly dangerous because it lacks many of the safeguards present in overseas legislation.

For example, there’s no coolingoff period which would give vulnerable people time to reflect on their situation. In a hospital setting, the Ministry of Health has confirmed that death may occur in as little as four days.

But according to responses to the Votesafe quiz, only 35% of voters know this.

Then there’s the fact that there is no requirement for any of the doctors involved to have any specialist expertise in the person’s illness. And no requirement for independent witnesses at any stage of the process.

All of the above are requirements in Victoria’s law — but not in the End of Life Choice Act.

Mariano Mendonza

Auckland

‘‘I’D rather be dead than wear nappies and have someone wipe my drool’’. A recurring statement I’ve heard out of mouths all over New Zealand while on a book tour talking about the End of Life Choice Act.

Interestingly, I would challenge people to make that statement while standing in front of someone with a disability.

I got a big smack down on my underlying ideology about dignity, function and independence by interviewing those with disabilities such as Christchurch quadraplegic Claire Freeman.

Since when is life not worth living if you aren’t able to do everything yourself? Is needing help a weakness?

Sounds like pride to me. And it flies in the face of ‘‘it’s OK to not be OK’’ campaigns.

Dignity is bestowed on someone by compassionate care. Is it within a person because they are a person? That’s what human rights are all about. Independence and functionalism do not equal value.

If we’re voting with this belief, we’re reinforcing functionalism and devaluing fellow humans. We’ve got to address our underlying fear before voting in this binding referendum about the End of Life Choice Act.

Caralise Trayes

Auckland

A RICHLY funded opposition group to the End of Life Choice Act claims that 1750 doctors say No to the proposed law.

It’s taken Care Alliance five years to collect this number of signups and not one registered doctor among the 17,000 licensed to practice in New Zealand would have escaped having the emailed invitation thrust under their nose.

So, it appears 15,250 didn’t sign up. Ten percent did.

When last surveyed in 2017, 37% of doctors supported law reform to permit assisted dying and 24% were personally willing to administer the lifeending medication.

We have about 33,000 deaths annually and expect that 0.5%1% will take advantage of the law should it pass. That’s 165330 people annually.

The 1750 conscientious objectors would have protection under the law — they could simply decline to participate. What’s their problem? Politicking at the congregation’s expense.

Ann David

Waikanae

THE livestreamed Herald euthanasia debate showed the Yes campaigners in the worst possible light.

Stuart Armstrong and Dr John Bonning wrongly claimed that the End of Life Choice Act is one of the most restrictive in the world. They cannot have read it properly or they would know that it lacks many basic safeguards present in overseas legislation.

None of the doctors involved needs to be a specialist in the person’s illness; no standdown period is provided before the prescription is written and there is no mental competency test when the lethal dose is administered.

All of these provisions are in Victoria’s legislation so the speakers’ likening the EOLC Act to that law was completely invalid. They were also out of order in equating the Act with the legislation in Oregon, which allows only assisted suicide but not euthanasia.

Both speakers repeatedly poured scorn on the concerns of Dr Rod MacLeod and Dr Mary English regarding the inevitable coercion which would be faced by the elderly and the disabled. For some reason, Stuart Armstrong seemed to find this situation amusing.

So much for a compassionate approach to the end of life.

Paula Salisbury

Hamilton