Politicians urged to follow Canada on assisted dying

Voluntary euthanasia campaigners today urged politicians to stop prevaricating and follow Canada’s example in allowing doctors to help grievously ill patients end their suffering with a peaceful death.

The Canadian government last week introduced a Bill to allow medical assistance in dying. It will come into force by a June 6 deadline imposed by the Supreme Court which ruled that existing laws banning assisted dying infringed human rights.

“Canada has become a great example for New Zealand to follow,” Dr Jack Havill, president of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, aka End-of-Life Choice, said in a statement.

He said it should provide Parliament’s Health Select Committee, which is currently holding a public inquiry into the issue, with “an excellent process model”.

The committee is understood to have received at least 10,000 submissions before its February 1 deadline but has not announced when it will hear those who want to appear before to argue their case personally or if it will hold hearings in centres outside Wellington.

Dr Havill said: “Large studies in Canada over a number of years have provided a wealth of knowledge on the subject, informing the Supreme Court’s judgement in February 2015.

“In particular, they have contradicted the large amount of misinformation spread by opponents of medical assistance in dying.”

The Canadian Bill permits a medical practitioner to administer a fatal substance to a requesting patient with a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” or prescribe a drug enabling the person to end their own life.

The patient must be 18 or over and in an advanced state of irreversible decline with their natural death reasonably foreseeable.

Dr Havill said safeguards in the law protecting the vulnerable were similar to those in proposed legislation for New Zealand.

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