Scott Lynda: Death with Dignity Bill — First Reading 
Scott Lynda: Death with Dignity Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7491] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (NZ National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 I think that I more than anybody else in this House have had more experience with people when it comes to death and dying. As a nurse as a doctor and especially as a geriatrician who worked in the hospice movement I dealt with death and dying every day of the week and I cannot support this bill. There are people who are admitted to hospices who say: “I want to die.” but what they are saying is: “I want the nausea to go away. I want the pain to go away.” When one treats them they want to continue to live. 
As a geriatrician I dealt every day with people who felt they were a burden to their family. I dealt with elder abuse and I dealt with people who were slowly dying—and a slow death is never easy. But I remember when my own father died of cancer and my favourite aunty. When I look back at the days I spent at my father’s bedside I see them as being probably some of the best days. I spoke to my father probably more in the last 2 weeks of his life than I had in the 20 years before and I value that immensely. 
We must remember that this bill is about active euthanasia. This is about actively taking a person’s life. It is not about passive euthanasia. We heard about Martin Hames who made the choice not to have treatment and die—that is passive euthanasia and it happens every day in our hospitals and in our homes when people say: “I do not want to be treated any more. I do not want the antibiotics. I do not want the operation. I want you to let me die.” That is passive euthanasia and it happens. This is not passive euthanasia; this is active euthanasia. It is about actively taking a person’s life. 
It is a doctor’s ethical responsibility to save life not to take it. The Hippocratic oath reinforces that. To ask somebody else to take a life is a line we should not cross with regard to active euthanasia. Euthanasia is described in the dictionary as the act or practice of killing someone who has an incurable disease or injury or assisting that person to die. How does one define “incurable illness”? How does one define an advance directive? Advance directives are very dangerous. When does somebody lose his or her mind? When is the actual day when somebody no longer recognises his or her family? I have dealt with people with dementia for years. One day they may recognise their family and the next day they are not so good. When is the day one is going to kill them? That is an extremely hard decision. It is easy to think about this bill in terms that do not come down to the practical realities of what one is doing. 
When Michael Laws first put up his bill in the 1990s I like many people thought: “Well maybe there is justification in this.” but when we look at the issues and at what we are actually doing here and at the line we are crossing we see that the answer has to be emphatically no. Members have heard the arguments about the slippery slope and they have validity. When it is acceptable for a doctor to take a life one is crossing a line. When it is acceptable to say “This person no longer knows who they are. This person left an advance directive. This elderly person has said to me that they want to die.” one crosses a line. 
Does the line of incurable illness include mental health? Does that include somebody who is severely depressed but who can become well again with appropriate treatment? If it does this bill should never go any further than this House tonight. One has to think about what it would be like to hold the hand of one’s mother or father and watch them being given a lethal injection and think about how one would feel for the years ahead. The price is too high for this bill to proceed.