A fresh push is underway to change the laws on euthanasia in New Zealand. Labour List MP Maryan Street plans to introduce a Private Members Bill giving terminally ill people the right to physician-assisted suicide at a time of their own choosing. Niels Reinsborg spoke to Pat Hubbard of the Wellington Euthanasia Society.
PAT Hubbard is very much in love with life.
The spritely 80 year old bakes her own bread, tends her own vegetable garden and relishes the moments she gets with family and friends, but much of her time is also spent thinking and talking about death.
Hubbard is the Wellington Chair of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society and a passionate advocate for the right of terminally ill people to choose when to die. It’s not a subject she gave much thought to until 10 years ago when she watched a close friend with cancer die a long, slow and painful death. She cared for her friend in between bouts of chemotherapy and supported her in her last weeks in a hospice.
“She was very well looked after,” Hubbard says. “Hospices do a fabulous job for people who want to struggle on to the bitter end, making the bitter end as comfortable as it can be, but it’s not a death I would have chosen for myself and the experience taught me that people should have a choice.”
Hubbard soon joined the Wellington Euthanasia Society, formed in 1978 as an offshoot of the Humanist Society. A society had also formed in Auckland, but it was not until 2004 that the two groups formed a national society. Another branch later started in the Waikato and last year the newest branch, in Kapiti, was formed. Most members, Hubbard admits, are elderly, but she says that’s simply a reflection of the fact young people don’t think about death and that as a society we do not deal with death well.
“Death is the last taboo. Most of the traditions around death involved the church and as people have left the church it has left a big gap. People don’t talk much about death. It’s slowly changing, but change doesn’t happen overnight. I try to talk to as many people as possible.”
The Voluntary Euthanasia Society is one of two official groups in New Zealand pushing for individual control of end-of-life decisions. Hubbard says the Australian-based Exit International is about circumventing the law to give people the means to end life while the Voluntary Euthanasia Society has set its goal on a law change. The society has the backing of Labour List MP Maryan Street who plans to introduce a Private Members Bill to the House later this year.
“The society’s legislative committee is working on what needs to be done in the Bill, but it will entitle adults to choose when to die, with medical assistance, and it would be limited to those who are terminally ill. It’s important that the adult not only initiates the request, but is involved in the whole process.”
Hubbard says any law would work on the principle of advanced directive, so a person would have to make their wishes known before the advance of a terminal illness made it impossible for them to make a rational decision.
“A person would have to have that debate with their family .We would urge people to make their wishes known to their families.”
Hubbard is realistic about the chances of a law change this year. A Private Member’s Bill would first have to be drawn from the ballot and two previous attempts at passing legislation on legalised euthanasia have failed to get through Parliament.
“A Bill could go into the ballot and not be drawn for years and years, but my hope is it will keep sufficient discussion going that it will be an issue a government will take up in the future.”
She notes comments made by Prime Minister Key last year who said the issue of euthanasia needed to be publicly debated. Maryan Street plans to bring interested parliamentarians together to discuss the issue and make sure there is sufficient support in the House.
“The time is right for a debate on the issue. A survey we commissioned in 2010 showed 72 percent of people polled supported a Bill on euthanasia going to Select Committee. There’s also been recent publicity with several high profile cases hitting the headlines.”
The Euthanasia Society has brought to New Zealand American euthanasia campaigner Yvonne Shaw.  As director of Oregon’s Compassion and Choices, Shaw played a leading role in the campaign which saw Oregon become the first US state to legalise physician-assisted suicide in 1994.
Change New Zealand Law, public meeting with euthanasia campaigner Yvonne Shaw, Senior Citizens Room, Wellington Central Library, February 25.