A leading international advocate for people lawfully being able to make an end-of-life choice will be speaking in Hawke's Bay next week.
Yvonne Shaw, from Oregon in the United States, has been invited to New Zealand to stage a series of public meetings where she will speak about how Oregon became the first state in the US to enact a law allowing assisted dying. The act allows terminally ill citizens of the state to end their lives through the voluntary self-administration of lethal medication expressly prescribed for the purpose by a physician.
She heads an organisation called "Compassion and Choice in Oregon" and has been invited to speak by VESNZ (Voluntary Euthanasia Society of New Zealand) - with her meetings in Wellington, Christchurch and Nelson drawing strong public response.
She is scheduled to speak at a public meeting in Napier on March 21 from 10am to noon at the Greenmeadows East Public Hall.
Helen Yensen of Napier is part of the region's VESNZ group and said she had been an advocate of what she called "end-of-life choices" since the early 1980s - just after the death of her husband.