Catholic agencies claim the progressive voice at Select Committee Hearing on Euthanasia Bill

Yesterday, representatives of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference (NZCBC) presented their serious reservations over David Seymour�s �End of Life Choice� Bill to the Justice Select Committee.

The Justice Select Committee heard Bishop Charles Drennan and Dr Caroline Newson, who works in acute psychiatry medicine, speak on the proposed Bill. New Zealand�s foremost bioethics agency, The Nathaniel Centre, was represented by Centre Director, Dr John Kleinsman and Researcher, Sue Buckley.

Bishop Charles acknowledged the selfless staff working in rest homes, hospices and hospitals who accompany the dying and their families and whanau daily.� He noted the Church�s long involvement in palliative care and referred to the first hospice in New Zealand, founded by the Little Company of Mary, a group of Catholic sisters, who advocated in the early 1970s to set up beds to nurse the dying and established the Mary Potter Hospice.

Bishop Charles argued against the Bill�s narrative, based on the premise of individual choice. He said, �choice is good but not always good. What is important is to choose what is right or dignified or best�. Bishop Charles� main argument was that the Bill if passed would usher in a regressive unnecessary backwards move.� New Zealand prides itself on being a progressive nation and to be truly progressive is to challenge ageist attitudes and eliminate the sense that being sick or old or dependent equates to being a burden. He stressed that assisted suicide of the elderly or sick, like the tragedy of youth suicide, would be a cause of great whakam? or shame for Aotearoa.��

In her statement, Dr Caroline Newson said this Bill would contradict the Government�s pledge to better support mental health, making it legal for those with a mental illness to have a doctor assist their suicide.

Dr Newson continued, emphasising that euthanasia and assisted suicide had no place in healthcare and that doctors did not want nor should have imposed upon them the burden of being the ones to end people�s lives when they were trained to provide care and give hope to their patients.

�This Bill places a heavy burden upon the Medical profession to aid in the suicide of, or actively kill a person who seeks such an end to their life and is deemed to satisfy the Bill�s eligibility criteria,� she said.�

In his presentation to the Committee, Dr Kleinsman spoke to the Bill�s problems; its imprecise terminology, vague and subjective language around eligibility, failure to consider broader social implications and the ethical contradiction of involving doctors in ending the lives of their patients � �we should not ask doctors to be �life takers� as well as �life savers�.� He spoke too to the impossibility of ensuring people were not coerced, a point made by various other medical groups during the day, as well as the absence of effective safeguards within the proposed legislation. Citing the growing rates of elder abuse as well as growing social isolation amongst older people along with an increased sense amongst our elders that they are a burden, Kleinsman added: �There has never been a more dangerous time to implement an assisted death regime in New Zealand.�

Dr Kleinsman also warned against the slow creep of eligibility and cited international examples where the year on year increase of numbers of Euthanasia is rising steeply. The practice of Euthanasia, Dr Kleinsman said in his submission, is contributing to a �new norm around dying� in places such as Belgium and the Netherlands whose regimes are very similar to the proposed legislation.

The NZCBC�s social justice agency, Caritas also presented to the Select Committee.� Their media statement on their submission can be found by visiting their website at http://www.caritas.org.nz/.� Others presenting to the Select Committee included Not Dead Yet Aotearoa, Care Alliance, Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, Grace Presbyterian Church of NZ, Palliative Care Nurses, Australian and New Zealand Society of Palliative Medicine and Hospice New Zealand.

The timetable for the Justice Select Committee\'s report on the End of Life Choice Bill has been extended�after a record number of submissions were received. The select committee will report back to Parliament at the end of March next year.