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“The experience of those countries that have already legalised euthanasia shows that the demand for euthanasia cannot be limited to a carefully defined group,” say the New Zealand Catholic Bishops in their most recent statement on euthanasia.
“In the Netherlands euthanasia was initially only available to dying adults with terminal illness who were able to give informed consent and who repeatedly requested euthanasia.”
“Since 1973 all of these restrictions have fallen away and lethal injections can now be given to newborns and teenagers with disabilities, as well as to persons with dementia and depression.”
“In some of these cases there is no explicit request from the person concerned for euthanasia.”
The Bishops say that once we allow access to euthanasia for some, the reasons for confining it to just that group begin to look arbitrary.
They say it is quickly argued that to deprive those incapable of giving consent to euthanasia is an injustice.
It is also argued that allowing it for some conditions and not others is discriminatory.
Last week a private member’s bill to legalise voluntary euthanasia was lodged by ACT Party leader David Seymour.
It will not be heard until it has been drawn from the ballot, in which more than 70 other members bills sit.
Last week also, a petition to hold an inquiry was before Parliament’s Health Select Committee.
It was instigated by the voluntary Euthanasia Society of New Zealand and former Labour MP Maryan Street.
The prime minister, John Key, has made clear that he backs the inquiry but he says the Government would not put euthanasia on its own work programme.
Street previously had her own private member’s bill in the ballot, which was passed to Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway when she failed to make it back into Parliament.
But Labour leader Andrew Little took it off Labour’s programme, because the party had more pressing issues to attend to.
Parliament has previously voted down members’ bills seeking to legalise euthanasia, including that of former New Zealand First MP Peter Brown, who watched his wife die of cancer and drafted a Death with Dignity Bill in 2003.
Any vote on euthanasia would be a conscience vote.
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