The Voluntary Euthanasia Tea Lady invited to stand back

From noted.co.nz I have just received this perceptive view on Maggie ("Tea Lady") Barrie's blusterous opposition  to the Bill that most New Zealanders would like to see adopted.  

"As for Maggie Barry, her shortcomings as an opponent of assisted dying were again on full show last December after David Seymour released a (70 pg) report suggesting amendments to his bill.

"She was obviously blindsided by his recommendation that, in response to public concern, the bill should be amended to be available only to those with a terminal illness (removing access for those with “a grievous and irremediable condition”); explicitly exclude eligibility on the grounds of mental health conditions and disabilities alone; and incorporate the palliative care bill sponsored by Maggie Barry herself.

"Barry’s televised bluster in response to his eminently reasonable but clearly unexpected news was simply embarrassing to watch. She dismissed Seymour’s suggested amendments as an “extraordinary flight of fancy”, “publicity seeking” and accused him of “being cute”.

"It is clear that her opposition to the End of Life Choice Bill — centred on alleged risks to the vulnerable — is implacable and no safeguards or restrictions could ever be sufficient to satisfy her.  Indeed, it seems highly likely that even if every assisted death were filmed and the evidence presented immediately to the police to show the dying patient willingly took the lethal medication themselves after all the necessary precautions and paperwork had been observed — as happens at Dignitas’s clinics in Zurich — Barry would still claim the safeguards were inadequate.

From the short public interaction that I had with her (My blog June 29 2018) I would have to concur. But whereas a few months ago I invited her to stay out of the public domain as a member of the Justice Committee, perhaps I should now encourage her to carry on just as she has been doing. Even the National Party must recognise that they have a loose cannon on the deck on this particular issue... 

A Genuine Poll

For some months I have been having a (almost) one-way correspondence with my electorate MP on how he intends to gauge the :mind of the electorate on the matter of the End of Life Choice Bill.
I have urged him to exercise a proper conscience vote (even if I don't get the answer I want) rather than to pussyfoot around with taking a snap vote at a public debate attended mainly by a few enthusiastic supporters of the Bill and a large rent-a-crowd of people press-ganged by churches and other "anti" organisations.
Mark has, of course, been heavily involved in the National Party crises of recent weeks but at last we are to sit down together on Monday. So we will spend some time on how he can reasonably detect an accurate feeling from the electorate.
In a rash moment some months ago, I offered to  pay half the cost  of a professionally organised poll of the electorate. Now, I have just heard, Minister Stuart Nash has announced just such a poll for his electorate. This is something concrete for me to put on the table on Monday. I hope that we can set up something like this and that other electorates will follow this excellent example.
It's of relevance that last night we toured down to Northcote for their debate. Only two speakers this time, but no new arguments. A show of hands showed the meeting was about 50-50. But on the voting form we at least had to say if we were in the electorate - so our votes didn't count.
I still think it would be a travesty of the democratic system of last night's vote were taken as a genuine expression of the wishes of the electorate. I hope I can persuade Mark to do something better for Rodney electorate when we talk on Monday

End-of-Life Questions

I’m not sure if I should roll up to an electorate meeting on the End of Life Choice Bill tonight — it’s not my electorate and I am already a bit cross that anti-Bill protestors attend meetings all over the place and distort the vote that is usually taken at these events.

But if I go—and can pluck up the courage!—I’d like to ask a couple of questions of each candidate:—

(I am 84, have advanced metastatic spinal compression prostate cancer. I have no other life-threatening issues but I do have a history of undiagnosed and untreated tetany spasms after one surgery. If this cancer is allowed to take its course I can expect significant paralysis, double incontinence and a prolonged, undignified, painful death, possibly without adequate relief of suffering. I don’t actually want that, so—)

1.       Are you personally satisfied with the present law that says it is not a crime if I decide to take my own life rather than let my disease take its course? Yes or No.

2.       Are you then personally comfortable with my reality that if this Bill is not put into law quite soon I may plan to end my life now while I can still manage to drive my car into a bridge abutment or can shut myself up in our garage with the engine running (oh, damn, that won’t work—our car is all-electric!) or get to town to buy a party kit and figure out how to make that do what it was never designed for?