Bob Jones: Immoral to deny right to end pain

A recent opinion piece in the Northern Advocate argues that people should not be allowed to end their suffering.

The author has obviously enjoyed a privileged life and never suffered unbearable pain.

That does not excuse denying others the right to end theirs.

No advocate for voluntary euthanasia or death with dignity or physician-assisted death - whatever you want to call it - asks for the right to end anyone else's life, only for the right of each person to choose to end his or her own.

Many good arguments favour allowing individuals to make the choice to end suffering by ending their lives with compassionate assistance. No valid arguments oppose offering that choice.

Note well, too, the word "offering" - no one has to accept the offer. A law allowing death with dignity would not force anyone to choose it.

Arguments in favour of allowing physician-assisted death include the simply practical: DIY suicides are almost always ugly, messy and more costly to society and to friends and family members than are carefully thought out physician-assisted ones.

Other, and to my mind stronger, arguments arise from morality: no animal, including humans, should have to suffer unnecessarily.

Some pain cannot be eradicated while life continues, and sometimes such pain is simply unendurable. To force even one person to bear such pain would be wrong, inexcusable, immoral.

To be absolutely clear: forcing anyone to suffer unbearable pain would be evil, whether the pain is physical or emotional.

Some who oppose VE/DwD and even some advocates, propose that physician-assisted death should be allowed only in cases in which the sufferer has a terminal illness that will kill him or her within a specified interval.

In North America, the states of Washington, Oregon, and California have laws in place to allow voluntary euthanasia if a physician certifies that the person will die within six months.

Those laws say forcing someone to suffer six months of agonising pain is not acceptable, but forcing someone to suffer 18 months or 10 years of agonising pain is acceptable - cruel and logically untenable.

More enlightened countries, notably the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium, show greater understanding and compassion by imposing no such restrictions.

Let Aotearoa/New Zealand follow those good examples and show both sense and compassion by ensuring the right of any competent with unremitting pain to choose when to end their suffering.

- Colonel Bob Jones is a researcher and certified emergency medical technician, with a degree from MIT in Massachusetts, who has lived in the North for 24 years.