Your life, your choice?
Michael Laws knows Gore well.
His mother has spent the past three years in the dementia ward in a rest home in the town.
‘‘She is incohesive. She is to all intents a zombie.
‘‘The cruelty of her being alive is visited every day by my father and her family.’’
Laws was emotional when discussing his mother’s condition at a public debate about the proposed End of Life Choice Bill at the Gore and Districts RSA yesterday.
Laws and ACT leader David Seymour, who proposed the Members Bill, debated with former prime minister Sir Bill English and his wife, Mary, who are opposed to the bill.
It would give people who meet strict criteria the opportunity to die with medical assistance.
Seymour told the audience of about 200 people that New Zealand’s laws were ‘‘barbaric and uncompassionate’’.
He said the bill would give choice to a very narrow group of people.
‘‘All of the criteria must be met. It is very safe.
‘‘We give people a cruel choice by saying you’re not allowed to ask for help. All this bill asks for is the choice, and the tolerance and respect to make that choice.’’
Mary English, who has been a general practitioner for 30 years, said the bill would undermine the trust and respect people had for doctors.
‘‘I do not believe euthanasia can be ethical behaviour. A more consistent position for the medical profession as a society is the position that gives hope and meaning for both groups.
‘‘It is the position that death with dignity, and the respect and care expressed in a palliative care setting , not a prearranged, medicalised suicide scenario, which is what it becomes.
‘‘It is where the disabled and chronically ill can look forward to a presumption of assisted living, not assisted dying.’’
She said 700 doctors had signed a document opposing the bill.
Bill English said the proposed legislation was too liberal, and it was ‘‘licensing doctors to kill’’.
‘‘There are no consequences from it going wrong.
‘‘And, if there are no consequences, then that means the safeguards are meaningless.
‘‘One thing is really clear in the status quo – if you take another person’s life your motives and actions will be subject to scrutiny.
‘‘They may also then be subject to compassion and mercy, as happens in our legal system, but you will be held to account for taking that life.
‘‘This individual choice has this other enormous consequence. For the first time our Parliament would pass a law that says you can take another person’s life and you will not be held to account. And when people with power give that freedom it will ultimately be used more broadly.’’
The four speakers took questions from the audience, which seemed to be evenly divided in its stance on the proposed bill, before summing up.
Clutha-Southland MP Hamish Walker hosted the debate so that he could gauge what the community thought about it.
He voted for the bill at the first reading but would oppose it at its second reading in April.
‘‘In its current form I won’t support it. I believe it needs more protections in place.’’
Under the bill, New Zealand citizens or permanent residents, who are suffering a terminal illness, which is likely to end their life in six months, or a grievous and irremediable medical condition, who are in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability and experiencing unbearable suffering that cannot be relieved in a tolerable way, would be able to apply to die with medical assistance.
They must have the ability to understand the nature of the assisted dying and the consequences of it and be assessed by two independent doctors under the proposed bill.