17 April 2019

The ‘Doctors Say No’ Open Letter opposing euthanasia has received its 1,000th signature.

Organiser Dr Sinead Donnelly, a Wellington-based Palliative Medicine specialist, says she is humbled by the response. “We started with just a very simple one-page website and it has snowballed through word of mouth and social media.”

The Open Letter states that ‘Doctors want no part in assisted suicide’, noting the World Medical Association and the New Zealand Medical Association positions that “physician assisted suicide and euthanasia are unethical, even if they were made legal.”

Dr Donnelly says that David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill “only includes doctors to provide a cloak of medical legitimacy. Killing is not caring. It does not require any medical skills, it just requires the abandonment of medical ethics.”

She has a simple message to Members of Parliament as they approach the Bill’s Second Reading in May: “If you are really determined to legalise euthanasia, find another profession to do it. Please leave doctors out of it so that we can focus on caring for our patients.”

ENDS

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