A miserable death or a “good” one?

The Voluntary Euthanasia Society of New Zealand (VESNZ) called Monday for opponents of physician-assisted dying to explain why they think it is better for the terminally ill to suffer a drawn-out miserable death under heavy sedation rather than a “good death” at a time and place of their own choosing.

President Dr Jack Havill said most objections to end-of-life choice in a statement by the Euthanasia-Free New Zealand organisation on Friday were “clearly spurious and not supported by fact”.

He said there was no correlation between levels of suicide and physician-assisted dying. Dr Havill said suicide rates in Belgium had declined since laws enabling end-of-life choice were passed. And suicide rates in the Netherlands, another country where the terminally ill can get medical assistance to end their suffering, were well below those in New Zealand.

Commenting on the report that a grief-stricken elderly woman whose daughter had died was helped to die in Belgium, Dr Havill said Euthanasia-Free New Zealand omitted to say that the physician responsible for helping her to die acted well outside the law and had been referred to the public prosecutor.

He said such a case would not be possible under ACT MP David Seymour’s proposed End-of-Life Choice Bill, where patients’ criteria for physician-assisted dying included:

. Suffers from a terminal illness likely to end life within six months or has a grievous and irremediable medical condition,

. Is in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability,

. Experiences unbearable suffering that cannot be relieved in a manner that he or she considers tolerable.

Dr Havill said the low take-up rates of aid-in-dying in Oregon state, disproved claims by opponents that allowing voluntary euthanasia would mean huge increases in deaths. He said while there had been some increases as expected in places like Belgium and the Netherlands, physician-assisted dying still accounted for less than four per cent of all deaths.

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