A senior neuroscientist says doctors in Britain are prematurely ending the lives of elderly hospital patients through a programme that is also used in New Zealand hospitals. Professor Patrick Pullicino said doctors had turned the use of the Liverpool Care Pathway into the equivalent of euthanasia of the elderly. Professor Pullicino, a consultant neurologist for Read more
The vexed issue of euthanasia is back on the agenda for discussion because Maryan Street’s member’s bill is about to be re-introduced in parliament. Reflecting on her elderly mother’s recent death, Deborah Coddington puts forward the view that noone wants to administer euthanasia. “The NZ Medical Association is opposed to voluntary euthanasia … So the Read more
Italian historian Lucetta Scaraffia, writing in the L’Osservatore Romano, claims that the same arguments that were once used by the Nazis to promote their eugenics program of mass extermination are now being used by proponents of euthanasia and abortion of the chronically ill unborn. Scaraffia’s article comes in the wake of the Italian translation of Read more
As the spokesperson of a Catholic bioethics centre, there are some who discount my message because of my religious affiliation, rather than on the basis of its merits. It’s a classic case of “playing the man instead of the ball”. As two commentators noted in response to comments I recently made about the dangers of Read more
Labour MP Maryan Street says that there is “massive support” for her proposed bill to make euthanasia legal, and to set up a bureaucratic system to monitor the bill’s application. In her weekly column Rosemary McLeod contends that euthanasia is none of the Government’s business. She says that the case of the man who assisted his Read more
The MP campaigning for the right to die has been buoyed by a poll that shows more than 85 per cent of respondents to a survey supported voluntary euthanasia. The Sunday Star-Times reader poll of more than 1000 people also found almost three-quarters of people would help a terminally-ill loved one commit suicide, and that Read more
While we support discussion about Euthanasia and what it means to die well, it is actually premature to talk about legalising euthanasia while New Zealander’s lack equitable access to palliative care. In the absence of this choice, death by assisted suicide or euthanasia is an illusory choice – it can never be voluntary in a Read more
It says a lot about the opinion-forming classes that pretty much the only right they get excited about these days is the “right to die”. They treat the right to free speech as a negotiable commodity which may be snatched away from un-PC people. They have given the nod to the watering down of other Read more
Euthanasia is ethically wrong, and individuals could be placed under more pressure from family members to choose an “early exit” if a new bill goes ahead, say the Salvation Army and the InterChurch Bioethics Council. Both groups have come out against a proposed “end of life choice” member’s bill being drafted by Nelson-based Labour list Read more
Papal Knight Dr John Crowley was buried last Friday after dying peacefully at his Palmerston North home on 13 March. Dr Crowley was well known for his work in promoting Catholic teaching on beginning and end of life issues. He was Founder President of the New Zealand Association of Natural Family Planning, drafter of a Read more