David Farrar: End of Life law working well

The annual report of the Assisted Dying Registrar is here. Some key aspects:

Rodney Hide: Death by Government

Last year in New Zealand 486 people had their lives ended under the End of Life Choice Act. Of those, 459 received a lethal injection administered directly by an approved medical professional -- not self-administration or an oral drug. A doctor or nurse practitioner delivered the fatal dose.

To be an approved provider requires specific training and registration. There are currently only 121 practitioners on the SCENZ Group (Support and Consultation for End of Life in New Zealand) lists -- roughly one in every thousand qualified doctors and nurses. The full list is not public. Your own GP or nurse may or may not be approved. If you want the service, you can call the national line (0800 223 852 toll free) and be connected to someone who is.

Simon O'Connor: Dead or alive? MOH has no idea

It's nearly impossible to say New Zealand's euthanasia regime is safe when the Ministry of Health can't even add up the numbers correctly (again).

A friend got in touch last night with some significant news that the Ministry of Health (MOH) had once again botched it’s euthanasia numbers.

Rodney Hide: Doctors and Nurses now Kill and Maim

Our Doctors and Nurses are leaving babies to die should their attempt to kill them in utero fail. Their only care is to wrap the poor things in a blanket as they struggle and strain to their last pained breath.

That happens now in New Zealand hospitals with nurses and doctors present with the ability to save their lives. It happens because mum doesn’t want the baby hence the late term abortion.

David Farrar: Bill lodged to remove six month prognosis criteria for euthanasia

Todd Stephenson released:

ACT MP Todd Stephenson has lodged a member’s bill in Parliament’s ballot to extend eligibility for End of Life Choice services.

The End of Life Choice (Extended Eligibility) Amendment Bill removes the requirement for a terminally ill person to demonstrate a six-month prognosis, while retaining all other safeguards. …

Peter Williams: People with dementia are still people

Euthanasia suggestions offensive

As I approach my 70th birthday, it’s an unbelievable privilege to have a living parent.

My old Mum (born a week before her parents married in 1931! ) turns 93 in a few weeks.

Until a couple of months ago she was generally keeping decent health but then had a fall in her retirement village apartment. That meant a couple of weeks in hospital and the realization – in my view and that of medical staff - that she couldn’t live alone anymore.

Clive Bibby: Care of the elderly - we have much more to do

Watching the parliamentary debate on the "End of life" bill during its second reading stages was an experience that l would recommend to anyone who genuinely wanted to form a reasoned opinion on the issue.

There is no question that, in these circumstances when MPs are not bound by party loyalties and are free to speak frankly from the heart, we see the institution of Parliament and those who represent us operating in a manner that makes us proud to be "kiwis".

Sadly, there appear to be few other branches of Government that rewards us in similar fashion for the massive amounts of taxpayers dollars spent keeping our version of democracy afloat.

Theodore Dalrymple: No Consolation - the Netherlands didn’t actually euthanise a teenager

If I were Dutch, I would not be altogether reassured by the ease with which it was widely (though mistakenly) believed that a 17-year-old girl named Noa Pothoven was put to death by doctors because of her unbearable mental suffering, rather than the fact that she was actually allowed to refuse all food and drink until she died of dehydration. The first was believed because putting a depressed teenager to death is the kind of thing many people have come to expect of the Netherlands.

Their expectations are not the result of mere prejudice. In August 2017, a Dutch doctor published a letter about the evolution of euthanasia in the country. “In 2015,” he wrote, “92 percent of the patients who received physician assisted dying had a serious somatic disease,” from which it follows that 8 percent (or 450 persons in absolute numbers) did not. Even this number may be an underestimate, for it was based on a survey to which only 78 percent of doctors replied. Furthermore, “serious somatic disease” is not the same as “imminently fatal disease.”

Gerry Eckhoff: Conscience and the Euthanasia Bill

When the seismic plates of public opinion grind against each other as they inevitably do over complex social issues such as abortion, prostitution, homosexual law reform, gay marriage, the various political parties employ a conscience vote rather than “whip” their MPs into towing the party line.  The Voluntary Euthanasia Bill is the latest of the social issues where MPs are allowed a so called “free vote”. 

It is important to note that our Parliament has adopted a stance of being secular which means the clear separation of church and state.  No laws can be passed based on privilege or preference being given to any religion or religious grouping.  

Karl du Fresne: Collins got it right, but received no thanks for it

Justice David Collins drew the short straw when he was assigned to hear Lecretia Seales’ case seeking the right to die at a time of her own choosing. He made the correct decision, ruling that it was for Parliament, not the courts, to change the law relating to assisted suicide.

He explained his decision in a thorough, carefully reasoned 55-page judgment. That he produced this document in a matter of days, hoping to deliver his decision before Seales died (which he did), was no small achievement.