Assisted dying around the globe
‘‘I don’t think anyone is trying to get their inheritance 10 days early, but I can think of a lot of people, in their last days of life, suffering like hell, and you say ‘how’d you like an extra 10 days of this?’’’.
Barry and Kleinsman’s concerns for the elderly, the disabled, the vulnerable, are magnified by what they claim are high rates of elder abuse and coercion.
‘‘The biggest danger is the subtle coercion,’’ says Kleinsman, ‘‘that somehow, elderly people do not have a place in our society anymore; that people with disabilities who are dependent don’t have a place in our society.’’
Seymour leads us once more back to the United States, where a 2017 Gallup poll put support for euthanasia at 73 per cent.
He says the people who take the option overseas are not the vulnerable or those on the fringes of society. Quite the opposite, in fact.
‘‘In Oregon, assisted dying is an overwhelmingly middle and upper-middle class phenomenon. The people that choose euthanasia in the United States are the people with health insurance and access to good palliative care.’’
Choice is at the centre of Seymour’s bill, but he has little choice now but to watch the progress of his legislation through Parliament after its passage through the health select committee.
For Barry and Kleinsman there is little choice but to reject the legislation, no matter how well it might have been managed overseas.
Barry says the proposed New Zealand legislation is ‘‘fatally flawed, irredeemable’’.
Nor are they swayed by the idea that euthanasia and assisted dying are practised in countries that we frequently look up to and, ironically, highlight as some of the most liveable on the planet. That what is good for them should be good for this country.
‘‘I object to the idea that the world trend is passing us by,’’ says Barry. ‘‘I don’t buy the argument that this is the way the world is going and we’d better catch up.’’