Editorial: Commission the answer on euthanasia

Members of Parliament failed this country when they denied the Death with Dignity Bill a select committee hearing. So divided is society over whether people with terminal or incurable illnesses should be given the right to die that the issue demands scrutiny in a structured and reasoned environment. A select committee would have provided that. So emotional has been the debate so far that a forum for dispassionate analysis is sorely needed. Again, a select committee would have provided that. Sending the bill there would not have bound any MP to support it at a later stage of its parliamentary passage. It would merely have indicated an acceptance that the subject of voluntary euthanasia must be confronted.

Although defeated at the first hurdle in Parliament on a conscience vote, the issue will not go away. Parliament's 60 to 57 vote against the bill was an accurate reflection of a split society. It also indicated why the issue will resurface, even if the legislation's promoter, New Zealand First MP Peter Brown, cannot put forward another bill until after the next election. Not providing a forum for rational debate was merely postponing the inevitable. At some stage, the web of moral, ethical and practical issues surrounding the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia will have to be tackled.

A binding referendum, of the type built into the Death with Dignity Bill as a backstop does not provide that forum. It would promote a debate that, again, was marked more by emotion than pragmatism. The answer now lies in the Government establishing a royal commission. This would hear submissions, carry out its own investigation and, finally, point the road forward.

The approach has a worthwhile precedent. In the mid-1970s, the subject of abortion similarly vexed and divided society. A royal commission provided much of the groundwork for, and the thinking behind, the 1977 Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act. By furnishing a structure for reasoned, fact-based discussion, and suggesting a variety of safeguards, it also took some of the sting out of the issue. More recently, the Government set up a royal commission to steer a path through the equally perplexing predicaments of genetic modification. Again, the outcome was highly reassuring.

Most of all, a royal commission into voluntary euthanasia would cast a dispassionate eye over the claim that palliative care has advanced to a stage where people can die without suffering physical pain; in effect, they can face death with dignity. Hospice New Zealand contends that physical pain can, indeed, almost always be managed. According to Dr Rod MacLeod, its clinical medical adviser, the vast majority of people who request euthanasia suffer emotionally, not physically. That suffering usually involves a feeling of isolation, or a sense of hopelessness, helplessness, depression and confusion.

If such were shown to be the situation, the case for voluntary euthanasia inevitably suffers. But if, as proponents argue, many people are pleading for the right to end their lives because of physical pain, the picture alters. Either way, society must become better informed through a forum that takes emotion and sensationalism out of the equation.

MPs could have achieved that by sending the Death with Dignity Bill to a select committee. A majority mistakenly rejected that course, opting instead to prematurely voice their distaste for the bill's contents, or to pay over-anxious heed to what they believed to be their constituencies' disposition. They should have allowed wider debate as earlier this year they heard from the public on issues surrounding prostitution, and as they may soon have to ponder marijuana's legal status and same-sex marriage. Their failure means the answers must now lie with an appropriately appointed commission.