Do we really want doctors assisting terminally ill people to die?

elocal Magazine, ed. 179. 29 January 2016

From time to time, an issue comes along which divides the community into warring camps which have little or nothing to do with conventional politics.  When I was in Parliament between 2002 and 2006, one such issue was whether prostitution should be legalised.  At the time, I was Leader of the National Party, and I remember being absolutely inundated with letters and emails from people holding very strong views on the subject.  Those opposed to legalisation were concerned, rightly, that legalisation would turn prostitution into “just another career option”, with disastrous consequences for the young women led into that industry.  Those in favour of legalisation believed that that would help to protect women who too often become the victims of violence and intimidation.  In the end, I voted in favour of legalisation at least in part because it seemed to me to be totally anomalous for it to be legal for men to pay for sex and illegal for women to sell it.

Right now, we have another issue which is deeply dividing the community – and no, I am not talking about whether we should change the flag (though I confess I am in favour of a change, and my first preference in the first referendum was the one eventually chosen to go up against our existing flag in the second referendum).

No, the issue on which a great many people feel very strongly is whether doctors should be allowed to assist those with terminal illnesses to end their lives.

The issue was put back onto the political agenda by the tragic circumstances of Lecretia Seales.  As readers will probably remember, Lecretia was an extremely able lawyer who developed a fatal brain tumour and, in extreme pain, asked the court to allow her doctor to assist her to die.  In the event, she died, at the age of 42, just hours after the court declined her request.  As a result of that, her husband secured many thousands of signatures for a petition to Parliament to have the law changed to allow such assisted dying.  The petition was directed to the Health Select Committee of Parliament.  That Committee has received a large number of submissions on the issue and this month the Committee begins considering those submissions.

It is not an easy issue.  Surely, life is sacred, and society shouldn’t sanction its deliberate shortening.  Aren’t doctors pledged to protect and sustain life?  How could this be consistent with actions which deliberately seek to shorten life?  Isn’t there a risk that, were “physician assisted dying” to be allowed, those with a serious illness might feel pressured by family members who see the mounting cost of medical care eating away at their inheritance?

Yes, there are certainly risks but to me those risks are worth taking.  Indeed I voted for a Bill which would have legalised physician assisted dying, promoted by Peter Brown, then Deputy Leader of New Zealand First, in 2003.  That Bill failed to become law by just two votes.

David Seymour, the Leader of the ACT Party, has entered a Bill into the Parliamentary ballot that would allow mentally competent adults with a terminal illness diagnosed to be fatal within six months, or a grievous and irremediable condition in an advanced state of decline, the choice to ask a doctor to provide or administer the means to end their life at a time of their choosing.  There is, of course, no certainty that that Bill will be drawn from the ballot – it depends, quite literally, on the luck of the draw.

But if the Bill is drawn it would certainly pass into law if Members of Parliament reflected the views of their constituents.  New Zealanders are overwhelmingly in favour of legalising physician assisted dying.  A poll undertaken by Curia Research – the company which does most of the polling for the National Party – found that 66% of those polled were in favour, with 38% strongly in favour.  Only 13% were strongly opposed.

Nobody wants the law to make it possible for somebody who is feeling a bit depressed but is otherwise in good health to be able to get help from a doctor to end their life.  And of course that is not what is proposed.  The wording of David Seymour’s Bill is quite tight, and were I still in Parliament I would certainly vote for it.

In those countries, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, and those US states, such as Oregon, where physician assisted dying has been legal for nearly 20 years, there is no evidence that that power has been abused.  Some opponents of allowing physician assisted dying have claimed that 1.8% of all deaths in Belgium are deliberately caused by doctors without the patient’s explicit consent – which sounds appalling.  But that piece of evidence comes from a study that concludes: “Its occurrence has not risen since the legalisation of euthanasia in Belgium.  On the contrary, the rate dropped from 3.2% in 1998 to 1.8% in 2007.  In the Netherlands, the rate dropped slightly after legalisation, from 0.7% to 0.4%.”  In other words, all countries have people who die without explicitly asking at the hands of health professionals administering palliative care.

Anybody who has watched somebody with a terminal illness, in extreme pain and wanting to die, as I have, would vote to allow physician assisted dying.

I am indebted to the ACT Party weekly newsletter, “Free Press”, for some of the material above.

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Copyright © 2024 Don Brash.