Should Doctors be allowed to kill their Patients?

The doctor assisted suicide of Brittany Maynard on Sunday in Oregon has again raised the question should the law be changed to allow doctors to kill their patients or assist in their suicide. Brittany was in a terminal condition with a brain tumour, she did not kill herself because of intolerable pain but in fear of pain. Her death is a tragedy and it is deplored. By taking her life she has undermined the right to life of us all.

After suffering from severe headaches, Brittany Maynard found out she had stage II glioblastoma multiforme and had up to ten years to live. However, after she had surgery, doctors found out that she had the most deadly form of brain cancer, stage IV glioblastoma multiforme. The cancer usually kills its victims in a matter of months.

Following Brittany’s death the New Zealand media has jumped on the Pro-Euthanasia bandwagon with alarmingly biased reporting on the issue over the last few days. An example – a TVNZ article published yesterday (Tuesday 4th November 2014).

Marion Street’s End of Life Choices bill was taken out of the ballot in 2013 to ‘avoid being a distraction prior to the general election’, It is feared that the bill may be picked up by a Labour MP and placed back in the ballot.

There is no dignity in being killed by your doctor. Doctors are committed to respecting the right to life of their patients and to do no harm. Legislation to allow for doctors to kill their patients would be an extremely unwise social policy and a threat to the elderly, the disabled and the seriously ill.

There is a growing problem with elder abuse in our country. Legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide would mean new opportunities for abuse. If the law were changed there could be unseen pressure imposed on elderly relatives to choose assisted suicide by family concerned about their inheritance being consumed by the cost of living in a retirement home/hospital. Elder abuse is seldom reported, mainly because the person perpetrating the abuse is often the person upon whom the victim is dependent.

When assisted suicide becomes a treatment option, there are doctors who will offer it to vulnerable patients as an option when what these patients actually want is to be treated and to live., Such persons may be steered to suicide when the laws allow doctors to prescribe death.

Euthanasia is strongly opposed by the World Medical Association, The New Zealand Medical Association, Hospice NZ and palliative care specialists. Doctors are totally opposed to being asked to murder their patients.

In Oregon there are cases where patients sought treatment but were offered a lethal drug to commit suicide, The most well known cases involve Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup. Each wanted treatment. The Plan denied their requests and steered them to suicide by offering to pay for their suicides an option they flatly refused.

Dr Boer, who is a Dutch academic in the field of ethics, had argued seven years ago that a ‘good euthanasia law’ would produce relatively low numbers of deaths. But, speaking in a personal capacity recently to the House of Lords who were considering a euthanasia bill of Lord Falconer, he said that he now believed that the very existence of a euthanasia law turns assisted suicide from a last resort into a normal procedure.

Dr Boer, was a leading promoter of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Holland. Since 2005 he has been a member of a review committee that monitors euthanasia deaths stated to the House of Lords that: Euthanasia is now becoming so prevalent in the Netherlands that it is ‘on the way to becoming a default mode of dying for cancer patients’.Please don’t make the mistake that we made.

Assisted deaths in the Netherlands have increased by about 15 per cent every year since 2008 and the number could hit a record 6,000 this year. There are many people who have been killed without their knowledge or consent. Campaigns for doctor-administered death to be made ever easier ‘will not rest’ until a lethal pill is made available to anyone over 70 who wishes to die.

Everyone has a right to die with dignity, treated with love and compassion and with appropriate palliative care. We should protect the vulnerable in our community by opposing legislation that would impose on doctors the responsibility to kill their patients or assist in their suicide.

What is needed is improved palliative care not the right for doctors to kill their patients.

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