Say what you like about our Government but it does have a strange set of priorities. Mention stripping folk of basic rights in order to strengthen institutional power, and its enthusiasm and passion seems unconfined. Bring up anything seeking to boost personal autonomy or individual freedoms and there's a sudden stampede towards the too-hard basket. Yes, this lot might be great in a fire sale. But social responsibility? You'd have to say, clueless.
Take the pedestrian approach towards legalising assisted death, or euthanasia in New Zealand. Twice previously proposals have been shot down by our Parliamentarians, once in 1995, and again by just three votes in 2003. Since then prime minister John Key has spoken in support of a review but has been all talk and no action. Despite polls suggesting nearly three-quarters of Kiwis are supportive of change, he appears to have no stomach for taking a lead.
Now, thankfully, Labour MP Maryan Street is promising to introduce a private member's bill. It's just a pity she's had to act where the Government has not, and that, for all her hard work and good intent, her "End of Life Choice" bill is destined to languish in the ballot until it's selected by chance. Like a Lotto ball. For a proposal that seeks to address dignity in death; that's based on compassion, humanity and respect, it is a scandalous neglect of duty.
Hopefully, though, if Street's bill is selected for debate, even the Government will throw its support behind the changes. Far too many people are continuing to suffer horrible and degrading deaths simply because of an outdated decree. Others are choosing to break the law. An elderly Nelson couple took their own lives last year; a Dunedin man was sentenced to home detention for helping his terminally-ill mother die. Lesley Martin went to jail.
For another Nelson man, Don Grant, whose wife Yoka De Houwer has a rare form of cancer and wants to choose when she'll die, the changes are long overdue. "We're really hoping we can get something done," he said. "It may not come in time for us, but we think if you're terminally ill in New Zealand you don't get good quality of life. Often you starve to death because they remove food and fluids, and just drug you up with morphine until you waste away, and that can take more than a week."
Most of us, having reached adulthood, will have some experience of this. My mother died in the late 90s from a secondary cancer that attacked her brain. Eventually, she lay in hospital in a coma for a week; a vegetable, until she was "denied fluids" - a euphemism for killing her. Without water her kidneys packed up; her body was unable to break down toxins and she was effectively poisoned to death. This is what anti-euthanasia campaigners like to call "palliative care".
Having watched a couple of other family members die from cancer, I know now she was one of the lucky ones. It's a cruel and perverse state of affairs when we can force people to endure a painful and ugly death, despite having the means and insight to assist with a voluntary and dignified exit. No wonder so many continue to flout the law, motivated not by malice but by love and compassion. No wonder Britain has now moved a step closer to legalising assisted dying.
Key often likes to dismiss social issues as being not terribly relevant or pressing. This isn't one of those examples. Terminally ill people aren't known for creating a clamour. They don't march in the street, or occupy offices or picket the steps of Parliament. Generally speaking, they just get on with the business of dying; sometimes horribly. That the National-led government will leave such an important matter to chance tells you all you need to know about their priorities.
Perhaps, if there was some money to be made from it, they might consider it more closely.
» Read more of Richard Boock in the Sunday Star Times.
» Follow Richard on Twitter: @richardboock.
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Mr Kleinsman is disguising a theological argument by trivialising the right-to-die debate as being economically driven. Time was that people of religious bent would refuse pain-relieving medication because they believed that God intended them to suffer, ie: that they had sinned - as if an agonising death would somehow get them into Heaven. Similar arguments were used (Genesis 3:16) when anaesthesia was invented, suggesting that to relieve a woman's labour pain was somehow blasphemous. If a person is able to make a clear and valid decision to end their life rather than suffer lingering pain and/or disability, no one should be able to frustrate their choice on any grounds whatsoever, and the method to do so should be available legally. Is it somehow preferable that they should instead seek illegal methods, and that others who assist them purely out of compassion should be branded criminals? A properly drafted law should avoid the possibility of abuse - if any politician had the gumption to propose it. As David Lange famously said during the debate on homosexual law reform, "We're decriminalising it, not making it compulsory". To suggest that enacting a humanitarian law would start a "time to off Granny" trend is just scaremongering. People are already able to issue "do not resuscitate" instructions to be enacted in the event that they are comatose and beyond recovery. The unedifying spectacle of the Terri Schiavo case proves the need for proper, informed debate on the subject - not the "never, never, never" proclamations of Mr Kleinsman and his ilk.
Mr Boock is unwittingly creating a climate of fear among the elderly who dont wish to be killed by their doctor.It is disappointing that Maryan Street, a Labour list MP proposes to introduce a euthanasia private members bill. Euthanasia is about doctors killing their patients or assisting in their suicide. Under the Crimes Act sections 158 Homicide and 179 Suicide, the taking of life or assisting in the suicide of another person, are serious crimes against the person. This legislation is necessary to protect the lives of every member of the community, especially the defenceless and vulnerable. Ms Street has forgotten that the purpose of the State is to provide legal protection for the right to life of every member of the community from conception to natural death and not to preside over their destruction. The NZ Medical Association is totally opposed to euthanasia because it violates their medical ethics. The disability sector also opposes euthanasia. What dignity is there in being killed by your own doctor?It would be a dangerous and unwise public policy to allow doctors to kill their patients, could we ever trust them again if killing the patient was a treatment option.Euthanasia is part of a culture of death that has given us abortion on demand.
No NZSounds you are mistaken in arguing that euthanasia is about theology. It is about the potential for abuse of the elderly and the disabled. You say that "A properly drafted law should avoid the possibility of abuse". I don't think so. That is what they said about abortion following the CS&A Act 1977. The 'mental health clause' was supposed to be for hard cases. Now 98% of the some 17,500 yearly abortions in NZ are on this ground. Those who think that any drafted law will hold back euthanasia are deluded. It is obvious that what is already happening in the Netherlands would also happen here. Go back and read John Kleinsman's article very carefully. No one is asking that heroic measures be taken to preserve life in the case of a dying person, but there is a world of difference between causing a premature death because of side effects of pain relieving medication and a doctor intentionally giving a drug that will kill his patient. One is palliative care and the other is euthanasia. NZ must choose which future it wants for it's elderly citizens care or killing. I for one think we have enough killing in this country as it is.
I ask why the NZ Herald continues to give free reign to Richard Boock, a sports commentator free reign to rant on about subjects that he is effectively ignorant about? A case in point. While I sympathize with him over the loss of his mother, his comments about what constitutes palliative care are factually incorrect. He says;
"Eventually, she lay in hospital in a coma for a week; a vegetable, until she was "denied fluids" - a euphemism for killing her. Without water her kidneys packed up; her body was unable to break down toxins and she was effectively poisoned to death. This is what anti-euthanasia campaigners like to call "palliative care"
What happened to Richard's mother is not and has nothing to do with what those who are against euthanasia call palliative care. What it is is, termed 'the Liverpool Pathway', in which the patient is dehydrated to death by the removal of fluids, accompanied by terminal sedation. This insidious 'pathway' has crept into our hospitals quite recently and is very nicely saving hospitals heaps of money by quietly shuffling off those who would otherwise have died a natural death.
Richard stick to sport or at least learn some more about the subject matter they allow you to sprout on about.
chris #5: quite right, chris. may i suggest you boycott the nz herald until they come to their senses... :)
Yes please, lets have euthanasia available to those that want it. I have a signed request written some 30 years ago (I'm now 59yrs) and still in good health. Several years ago,I saw my Mother (and my Father who cared for her)suffer for an extra 5 years because a medical person did not follow the DNR instructions on her medical file. I have worked in rest home/hospital situations. I do NOT want to be in those type of places, I do NOT want my family to go thru the extra trauma etc of watching me slowly rot away. Get out there and talk with people who have been thru those times with loved ones. It's not for everyone, but give us the choice!!
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Mr Boock is horribly misinformed and very naïve when he proposes legalising the killing of the terminally ill as something our society should promote.
This column presents a false dichotomy – being killed by your doctor versus being forced to endure a painful and ugly death. This is a gross misrepresentation that seeks to prey on people's fears about dying. Because of Palliative care services available today, no one needs to die in pain. Research also shows that people do not choose euthanasia because of pain. Most who ask for it do so because they feel socially isolated and are usually depressed.
The real issue here is the consequences of legalising euthanasia in a society in which the elderly and disabled are increasingly marginalised. In the current socio-economic climate the rising costs of health care and residential care at the end of life will contribute to a new pressure on the elderly to 'do the right thing'. In this context the 'right' to die will all too quickly become the 'duty' to die.
Elder abuse is one of the fastest growing issues in the western world - legalising euthanasia in this context is literally a 'lethal' mix for many powerless and vulnerable people, including those with disabilities. We don’t need euthanasia and, if we truly value caring for the elderly rather than disposing of them, we don't want it!
I suggest Mr Boock stick to commentating on the cricket … if he can cope with the pain involved in that! John Kleinsman The New Zealand Catholic Bioethics Centre