Have your say: Euthanasia debate

The case of Lecretia Seales has brought the euthanasia debate to light.

Right to die

So the procrastination pertaining euthanasia continues.

I can understand withholding a Government directive on it. Homosexuals can now marry and rear children because they vote (and votes count), thereby debasing marriage (has anybody thought to ask the child concerned if it wants to be reared by two mummys or two daddies instead of a natural mother and father as nature intended?).

People who have been euthanised don't vote, so let's keep it on the back burner! I certainly believe one, whose quality of life has ceased, is in constant pain, and whose life has become intolerable, should be allowed to be terminated early.

Such civilised countries as Belgium, The Netherlands, Canada, and certain states in the United States now allow it, and it seems more will follow.

Here is my answer to our elected representatives in Parliament. Let us have a national referendum on it. But that would be democratic, wouldn't it? After all, we are possibly going to have two referendums on our flag, so let us have one on euthanasia at the same time as one on the flag.

Kevan G. Marks
Kaipara

Life unbearable

A few people have responded to my letter about euthanasia (May 29). Thank you for doing so, as this debate is important.

Was it cruel to deny Lucretia Seales the right to be killed by her doctor, as J Macleod suggests (June 1, "Alive but dead")? I don't believe so. Neither was she "alive but dead", even in her last few days of semi-consciousness.

True cruelty, in this context, would have been to deny her appropriate treatment and kind care, the sort of care that many people throughout NZ receive every day in their homes and in hospitals, nursing homes and hospices.

R Lieffering ("Is pain terminal", June 3) says "the person requesting relief must be terminally ill or experiencing incurable unbearable suffering".

This rendering of the proposed law change is not the same as the End of Life Choice Bill: (in the Parliamentary "draft for consultation").

"That the person suffers from a terminal illness which is likely to cause death within 12 months, or from an irreversible physical or mental condition that, in the person's view, renders his or her life unbearable." Note that incurable and irreversible have different meanings.

The reason to seek assisted dying doesn't have to be an incurable illness, hence conditions such as depression and loneliness, (which can all be or seem "irreversible") could be included in the criteria, as long as the sufferer feels, in his/her view, that life is unbearable.

J Gillgren
Hikurangi

What do you think? Comment below.