Ruling on advocate's 2010 suicide lifts debate
Gretha Appleby, 80, was found dead in 2010. Coroner Carla na Nagara released her findings into the death yesterday, stating Mrs Appleby died at her home from self-inflicted injuries.
Mrs Appleby was a noted member of the pro-euthanasia group Voluntary Euthanasia Society of New Zealand. more
Legal euthanasia not a 'slippery slope'
MP has drafted a bill which would allow terminally patients to end their lives.Allowing terminally ill patients to end their lives does not lead to a slippery slope of legalised dying, an American expert says.
Debate was rekindled this week after Auckland man Evans Mott was discharged without conviction for pleading guilty to assisting his wife to commit suicide.
Labour MP Maryan Street has drafted a member's bill that would make it legal for people who are terminally ill or suffering from an irreversible disease to take their own life or have someone help them to die. more
How I ended my patient's life
It is a quiet Saturday morning when I leave the house. When I reach my patient's house the sun is starting to become quite fierce and even the birds seem to be a bit lazy in the heat. Mark's wife, Marja, opens the door and when I enter the living room I meet the rest of the family.
There is a projector standing in the corner of the room and some boxes full of projector slides. The boxes are marked with words like "Spain 1970" and "Italy 1972". After introducing me to the family members I do not know, Marja explains that these are the snapshots of family holidays. In the past few days they have been talking a lot about all the good memories and watched photos of the holidays, when the kids were still young, projected on the wall. They had laughed their heads off, says the eldest son, but they'd also talked about more serious things and even planned Mark's funeral in detail.
I walk over to the bedroom where 65-year-old Mark is waiting for me. He welcomes me and says he is glad it is going to happen. more
Courts mirror mood on euthanasia: MP
Public support for euthanasia is growing in New Zealand in the wake of key court decisions, says a Labour Party MP who advocates assisted suicide.
The discharge without conviction of Auckland man Evans Mott after he assisted his wife's suicide reflected an increasing compassion for euthanasia, said MP Maryan Street.
She is the author of a private member's bill to legalise assisted suicide in cases of terminal illness and irreversible disease.
Mr Mott's wife Rosie died late last year after suffering an aggressive, incurable form of multiple sclerosis. more
Support grows for euthanasia
Almost 63 per cent of New Zealanders support proposed law changes that would allow ill people to end their lives, a new poll shows.
Today's results come a day after after Auckland man Evans Mott, 61, was discharged without conviction for assisting his wife to commit suicide.
Labour MP Maryan Street has drafted a member's bill that would make it legal for people who were terminally ill or suffering from an irreversible disease, to take their own life or have someone help them to die.
The bill has to be drawn from the member's ballot before it will be debated in Parliament and that could take some time.
A Horizon Research poll released today found 62.9 per cent of respondents supported the move, 12.3 per cent were opposed. more
Debate: Should we change the law to allow voluntary euthanasia?
John Key ought to be congratulated. It's not often that a Prime Minister has the courage or conviction to call it as it is. In Key's case, he said the unspeakable. That is, that every day doctors practice slow euthanasia to put dying people out of their misery.
For those who know little of the semantics of the voluntary euthanasia/ assisted suicide debate, slow euthanasia is where a doctor uses an opiate such as morphine to treat a dying person's pain.
As long as they maintain that it is not their intention to kill, that they are simply "keeping them comfortable", they don't break the law.
This is even though doctors know full well that too much morphine will always cause death. more
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