Voluntary euthanasia bill to be debated. Again…

Voluntary euthanasia bill to be debated. Again…

by | 21 Jun , 2017 | FOCUS, Value of Life

On 8 June 2017, ACT MP David Seymour’s private members’ bill was pulled from the ballot, starting the latest round of the euthanasia debate. It seems like only yesterday, that a bill to legalise voluntary euthanasia was withdrawn amid fears it would become a political football during an election year. Hang on, it’s an election year again!

What’s the difference between Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide?

Euthanasia is an intervention undertaken with the intention of ending a life to relieve suffering, for example, a lethal injection administered by a doctor

Assisted suicide is any act that intentionally helps another person kill themselves, for example by providing them with the means to do so, most commonly by prescribing a lethal medication

When David Seymour’s bill was drawn, National and Whanganui MP Chester Borrows said he was firmly against it [the bill].

We have a horrific record on suicide and I think it sends a message that sometimes it is okay to top yourself. And I disagree with that.

Economic Development Minister Simon Bridges said he was likely to vote against it, but may vote for it to go to a select committee so it could be properly debated. “Ultimately life is sacred and I think there are … ‘thin edge of the wedge’ arguments that concern me.”

What will that debate look like? The world has progressed since Maryan Street’s ‘End-of-Life Choice Bill’ was dropped. Views have changed and euthanasia laws in other countries have evolved over the past four years. Here’s a quick look at recent articles in the media if you want to consider the trajectory euthanasia laws have taken.

Did you read the first article in the list? Here are are some of the key points that need highlighting:

The Dutch are complacent about their famous law, he says. But there is no room for complacency. Under current legislation, euthanasia is only legal if a doctor believes that three conditions have been met: (1) the request must be voluntary and deliberate; (2) there must be unbearable suffering with no hope of improvement; and (3) there must no reasonable alternative to euthanasia. However, as euthanasia has sunk its roots deeper and deeper into Dutch medicine, the second and third conditions have shrivelled up. Patients define what is unbearable and they define what is a reasonable alternative. Unhappiness can be unbearable and a nursing home may not be a reasonable alternative. So, as one ethicist has observed, requirements (2) and (3) “add little to the requirement of a voluntary and thoughtful request”. Autonomy has trumped medicine. As a result, the number of euthanasia cases roughly tripled between 2007 and 2016, from 2000 to 6000.

One sign of the changing times is the rapid expansion of the services of the End of Life Clinic Foundation (Stichting Levenseindekliniek). This organisation offers euthanasia to patients whose own doctors have refused. They never offer to treat the underlying illness, whether it is physical or mental.

Last year, Dr Chabot points out, doctors from the End of Life Clinic each performed about one euthanasia every month. “What happens to doctors for whom a deadly injection becomes a monthly routine?” he asks. Now the End of Life Clinic is recruiting psychiatrists to service the mentally ill and demented. One obvious problem is that there is a shortage of good psychiatric help in the Netherland – which tends to take a long time have an effect, in any case – because of budget cuts.

Dr Chabot is deeply sceptical about euthanasia for the demented: “we are dealing with a morally problematic act: how do you kill someone who does not understand that he will be killed?”
How? It turns out that sometimes a relative or doctor secretly laces their food or drink with a sedative to make it easier to give them a lethal injection. In one notorious case last year, the sedative didn’t work and relatives pinned the terrified woman to the bed while the doctor gave the lethal injection. Dr Chabot was astonished to discover that “surreptitious administration of medication has previously occurred, but has never been mentioned in an annual report.”
Isn’t anyone paying attention to these developments, Dr Chabot asks.

While researching this topic, I realised that only western countries seem to face this issue. Why is that? http://www.scielo.br/pdf/bioet/v24n2/en_1983-8034-bioet-24-2-0355.pdf 

What’s the real problem?

Euthanasia is presented as a solution for those who are suffering unbearable pain, by allowing them to exercise their right to take their own life and not be forced to live with their current or progressing condition.

Is depression a medical condition?

Here’s what the New Zealand Ministry of Health says,

Depression is a mental illness.. [it] can range from being a mild illness, to a severe one – where you can lose interest in life and the things you used to enjoy.

Some of the signs of depression:

  • feeling tired all the time
  • getting too much sleep or not enough
  • feeling worthless and helpless
  • thinking about death a lot
  • having no energy and feelings of low self-esteem
  • loss of appetite or overeating
  • sadness or emotional ‘numbness’
  • loss of pleasure in everyday activities
  • irritability or anxiety
  • poor concentration
  • feeling guilty, or crying for no apparent reason.

Source: depression.org.nz

Do we condone suicide in New Zealand?

No. We actively campaign against it.

Suicidal thoughts are a key symptom of depression.

What’s Euthanasia?
Asking someone else [a physician] to intervene and take your life because you are unable to do so yourself.

“… a rose. By any other name, would smell as sweet.”
~ Romeo and Juliet, Act II Scene II

Are there other solutions to this problem?

We need to stop victimising people facing ‘unbearable pain’ or ‘extenuating circumstances’ and reach out in love.
Think differently. Look for alternative solutions and, if you can’t find one, make one!

Did you catch the story in Stuff that came out the day after the bill was pulled from the ballot?

Husband’s ingenious solution to his wife’s loss of mobility

John Darnley says the first time he rolled down the street with Avis on the front of his bike, she loved it. Photo: Kevin Stent / Fairfax Media

“There was a time when visitors would come for miles just to chat with Avis Darnley.

But as Parkinson’s disease has melted away the muscles in her jaw and throat, left her in a wheelchair and stolen her ability to speak, life has got smaller.

Most days she was left with just her front room, her television, and husband John.

Until John decided it was time they both got on with living.”

John and Avis Darnley’s story demonstrates that there can be creative solutions to improving one’s quality of life.

Here’s another article, this time from the USA, about a man who takes an unconventional approach by taking care for his elderly neighbour. Their story reminds me of ‘the good Samaritan’. California Man Cares for Ailing 89-Year-Old Neighbour and Best Friend in Her Final Days: ‘Kindness Heals’.

Hospice New Zealand have a lot to say on this issue.

Hospice New Zealand does not support a change in the law to legalise assisted dying in any form. Nor do we consider that a change in the law would be in the best interests of the people we care for.

We believe Government should be investing in palliative care, increasing access to care and support not legalising euthanasia. Only when all New Zealanders have ready access to expert end-of-life care can a balanced debate begin. We support that all New Zealanders have the right to choose where they die.

The Nathaniel Centre played an instrumental role in the previous attempt to legalise Euthanasia in New Zealand.

It goes without saying that Family First will play a very public role in this debate, and that Maxim Institute to provide well-researched information for the country to consider.

I’ll close with a final thought by Maxim’s CEO Alen Penk,

David Seymour’s private member’s bill is based on an illusion. It assumes that it’s possible to create safeguards around assisted suicide practices that can prevent wrongful deaths. However, international evidence has shown that there is no reliably safe way to legalise euthanasia or assisted suicide.

Need more clarification around the euthanasia debate?

Check out this resource by John Kleinsman

Examples of actions which are not euthanasia are often used to argue for law change which is euthanasia.
This brief article aims to clarify some of the terms and issues in the hope that we can prevent this from happening.

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An empty chair, a missing Premier – a poignant metaphor

An empty chair, a missing Premier – a poignant metaphor

by | 24 Apr , 2017 | Value of Life

“Labour will not be introducing a private members bill on euthanasia” Andrew Little MP, Leader Labour Party.

MEDIA RELEASE FEBRUARY 11, 2017

For more information, see the Right To Life New Zealand Inc Press Release on Scoop.

British Actress, Comedian, broadcaster, Liz Carr, known internationally for her work opposing assisted suicide as a disability campaigner as well as her role in the BBC forensics drama, Silent Witness, has been in Melbourne, Australia for the last few weeks with her show: Assisted Suicide: The Musical.

Part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Liz’s show is incredibly funny as it is poignant. Simply put; it is a great night out designed to make people think about the issue of assisted suicide. Pegged by Liz as a ‘Ted Talk with show tunes’ the show is a rollicking feast of songs in the great tradition of show tunes interspersed with Liz talking to the audience about her experiences and concerns about assisted suicide.

John Counsel summarized well in his review:

For me, the lasting impression was of how reasonable Liz’s arguments are. There’s no dogmatic, in-your-face demand to accept any specific position. Yes, there’s plenty of confrontation and strong language… but it’s not directed against anything except entrenched, predominantly-emotional stances that simply won’t stand up to rational examination. And she covers just about every imaginable angle. The overwhelming take-out from this 90-minute entertainment is just how ill-considered and irrational most of the pro-suicide arguments really are, and how rational and reasonable the alternatives are. It’s about LIFE, not death. And it’s about showing better solutions for LIVING with dignity.She also skewers popular pro-suicide buzzwords like “choice”, “dying with dignity”, “mercy killing”, etc and presents a cogent case for people with disabilities, against a clever tapestry of the stark realities experienced in countries and states around the world where assisted suicide is already legal. It’s a sobering wake-up call, delivered with clinical precision, couched in terms that can only be considered rational and lucid — yet disarmingly kind and intensely human.

Each night in the auditorium a lonely, empty chair faces Liz and the cast during each performance.

A sign on the chair reads:
Following an invitation from Liz Carr and Company – RESERVED – Premier Daniel Andrews
The chair has remained empty.

A cynic might conclude that the empty chair and the sign itself are something of a ‘trick-of-the-trade’; a vaudevillian artifice to add some extra dimension to the performance. To know Liz Carr would be to instantly dismiss such accusations. After all, the show is all about bringing information and experience to the debate which includes all politicians and certainly the Premier of Victoria. As Western Australian disability advocate, Sam Connor told the South Australian Parliament last year, ‘We don’t have loud voices; we don’t have unlimited funds; we don’t have glossy campaigns; we don’t have articulate public figures…and that’s why you need to listen harder because we are the people that are going to die as a result of this legislation.’ That is one reason why Liz Carr’s show is so important and why behaving like the proverbial ostrich is both disrespectful an dangerous.

Other Members of Parliament have seen the show and others also joined with their colleagues to hear Liz give a briefing in Parliament before the show commenced. Not all will have had an open mind on the subject, certainly; but to their credit they heard Liz out. And if informed consent is to be the hallmark of access to assisted suicide legislation, then surely giving up 90 minutes one evening to become informed about the issues that many in the disability community hold in this matter isn’t too much to ask? As Liz told Victorian MPs recently:

Opposition to these bills is usually marginalised as being religious and that’s very useful to do if you don’t want to listen to it, but actually if we want to introduce a bill like this, we have to listen to all sides of course, and we have to not diminish their view.I have met with disabled people all over the world in this issue. Why does it involve us? Because it’s very easy to shut up disabled people, and go this is not about you. This is about terminally ill people. In the public perception, in the media, and in medical terms there is such a fine line between disability and terminal illness, that we become one in the same.

Nor is Liz’s attempt to engage Premier Andrews about trying to embarrass him into coming. Liz has contacted the Premier’s office with an invitation; she has invited him again and again on social media, on national television and in the pages of the local newspapers. This is about genuine and necessary engagement with the issues; about an informed decision.

Readers will instantly understand that the Premier is an important figure in such debates having the ‘yeah or nay’ on what is debated in the parliament and what debate time is allocated. Moreso for Daniel Andrews in this instance because the move towards an assisted suicide bill expected to be introduced later this year was his call, with his endorsement and his support.

How can any polity make such grave decisions about life and death without hearing the concerns of communities who have skin in the game? A ‘head-in-the-sand’ attitude or a claim to be ‘too busy’ or worse, apathy or prejudice further marginalises those whose life experience is often precisely about marginalisation, discrimination, lack of opportunity and not being listened to. Again, as Liz observes:

Legislation is therefore unsafe already, because not everybody already starts out as having equal value under the law or in the medical profession or in public perception. I remember Stella Young talking about this a lot: can we have death with dignity, until we have dignity in life?

In Australia where every major infrastructure project requires an extensive (and expensive) environmental impact study that underpins development with assurances that our flora and fauna, waterways etc. are protected from harm, isn’t it only reasonable that any threat to human life and flourishing be treated with equal or greater weight? Isn’t it just and proper that we consider the risk; any risk of wrongful death a bridge-too-far just as we did when we banned capital punishment?

Legislation is always about winners and losers; about those who benefit and those who might be disadvantaged; but rarely is the disadvantage so severe as to be about life itself.

And so the empty chair remains as a powerful and poignant metaphor. Not good enough Mr. Andrews! Go looking for the ‘small voices’ and not simply the squeakiest of wheels. That’s a different story and one that must be heard.

Paul Russell is director of HOPE: preventing euthanasia & assisted suicide, which is based in Australia. This article has been edited and republished from his blog with permission.

No slippery slope on euthanasia? – Yeah right!

No slippery slope on euthanasia? – Yeah right!

by | 4 Oct , 2013 | FOCUS, Value of Life

Driving home today listening to a National Radio Worldwatch item about discussions in Belgium about euthanasia for children. Who said we don’t need to worry about a slippery slope?

We can be thankful for the time being that Maryan Street’s euthanasia bill for New Zealand has been withdrawn, but we should also remember that it is “only for the time being”. When advocates think the time is right, the bill will be reintroduced and Kiwis need to be ready and informed.

Having dinner recently with a friend in Wellington who I regard as very clued up in matters of church and public issues, I was surprised to hear him talk about switching off life-support machines as euthanasia. It’s not!

And if people are not well-informed on the issue, there’s a real danger that when a bill to legalise euthanasia is re-introduced, misinformation will determine the outcome rather than facts and the public good.

One group that I have met has set up a website called euthanasiadebate.org.nz which gives some pretty simple facts and arguments against legalising euthanasia. In a one page flyer called “8 dangers of legal euthanasia” they talk about difficulties with so-called legal safeguards, elder abuse, and other reasons why legalising euthanasia is not a good idea. The back page of the flyer provides answers to common FAQs.

A student doctor I know changed his view on this issue after reading the information and meeting with Professor David Richmond, chair of HOPE Foundation, who supports this initiative and is a specialist in this field.

I recommend having a look at the flyer, and if you think it’s useful forward this post to others. If it’s easier, you can even use the Facebook / Twitter buttons below to share it with your friends.

http://euthanasiadebate.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Eight-Reasons-Flyer-1.5.13b.pdf