EUTHANASIA-FREE NEW ZEALAND PRESS RELEASE
Wellington coroner may get more than he bargained for.
The Wellington coroner, Ian Roderick Smith is reported today to be calling for M.Ps to debate the issue of euthanasia in
an extension to his findings on the death of an elderly woman. According to some reports she was a member of a
pro-euthanasia group and may have received assistance to die from a voluntary agency. If such is the case, the coroner
may well be correct in labelling the death ‘euthanasia.’ .
The only Bill in the offing that would seek to legalise euthanasia is The Hon. Maryan Street’s End of Life Choice Bill.
If it is that Bill that the coroner has in mind for MPs to debate, - presumably with the intent to legalise it – the
coroner is actually calling for the enactment of legislation that includes a spectrum of indications considered
appropriate for a request for euthanasia so broad that it overlaps with personal and social reasons for which people
commit suicide. New Zealand society would then be faced with a dilemma.
On the one hand, responsible officials such as Mr. Smith’s boss, Chief Coroner Judge Neil MacLean would be anguishing
about New Zealand’s high suicide rates as reported recently, while on the other, virtually anyone aged 18 and over would
be able to have their lives terminated by the State provided they took a little care with the wording of their
application! Moreover, not only would we see ‘suicide’ by euthanasia, but if trends in New Zealand followed those in
Oregon State, U.S.A., the rate of suicide would not fall but would actually increase from the day euthanasia was
legalised.
Suicide rates in Oregon are reported to be 35% higher than the national U.S. average: in that state, suicide appears to
have become ‘normalised’. If euthanasia is legalised in New Zealand , the Wellington coroner may get more than he
bargained for.
ENDS