Labour MP Maryan Street says that there is “massive support” for her proposed bill to make euthanasia legal, and to set up a bureaucratic system to monitor the bill’s application.
In her weekly column Rosemary McLeod contends that euthanasia is none of the Government’s business. She says that the case of the man who assisted his mother bring on her death has been gone into at great length. He has been made to seem like a saint. No matter how noble his intentions were, no matter how good a person he is, “helping your mother to kill herself is never going to be an achievement to be wholly proud of”, she says, and “a rubber-stamped form won’t change that”.
McLeod says that she sees no way around prosecuting those who assist others to die. “It’s an important ethical issue, not a minor matter like dog licensing, and the sanctity of human life doesn’t diminish just because someone is close to death”, she says.
Rosemary McLeod is a Wellington based columnist, cartoonist and journalist.
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