Law risks suicide pressure, MPs told
A Manawatu¯ union organiser says proposed euthanasia legislation could force older, sick or mentally ill people into feeling pressured to end their lives.
Dion Martin, of Palmerston North, says the controversial End of Life Choice Bill, with its provision for ‘‘assisted dying’’, is really about ‘‘dressed-up suicide’’.
Martin has worked as a union organiser for 29 years and has witnessed vulnerable workers being pressured into doing things they didn’t want to.
The legislation could create a scenario where vulnerable people such as the elderly, the sick, those living with disability or mental health issues and even young people could feel under pressure to end their lives.
He said the bill ‘‘opens a Pandora’s box’’.
‘‘If you normalise the socalled assisted dying, you create a whole lot of situations where it’s OK to take a life.’’
In his own experience, Martin’s elderly mother thought she was a burden on the family.
The justice select committee was in Palmerston North yesterday as part of its tour around New Zealand hearing submissions on the bill, which seeks to give people with a terminal illness the option of requesting assisted dying. Yesterday’s panel consisted of National MPs Ian McKelvie and Chris Bishopand Labour MP Virginia Andersen.
Nineteen-year-old Megan, who did not want her surname used, was in favour of the bill, having seen her aunt suffer and die from cancer. Her aunt was sedated during her last few months and in a vegetative state, Megan said.
‘‘We should allow people to die in dignity without pain.’’
The committee has received more than 35,000 written submissions.