For ACT, euthanasia is a free market solution to health – why I will always oppose euthanasia in NZ
The Daily Blog 9 June 2017
Family First Comment: You won’t find us agreeing with Martyn Bradbury very often – and probably he with us. But this column is fascinating – and very revealing.
#rejectassistedsuicide
In a country with a mental health system as horrifically underfunded as ours, euthanasia would simply become a tread mill by faceless Wellington bureaucrats for cost cutting purposes on the most vulnerable.
So David Seymour gets to debate his euthanasia bill.
How awful.
For ACT, euthanasia is a free market solution to health.
In a country with a mental health system as horrifically underfunded as ours, euthanasia would simply become a tread mill by faceless Wellington bureaucrats for cost cutting purposes on the most vulnerable.
Look at the way CYFS abuse children in its care.
Look at the way mental health services shrug off their responsibilities for the suicide rates.
Look at how Housing NZ don’t care about toddlers in freezing homes.
Look at how the Ministry of Development simply shoves people into motels.
Look at how WINZ torment rape victims and trap beneficiaries into debt.
Are you seriously telling me the neoliberal welfare state of NZ cares about NZers so much they can be trusted with administering euthanasia?
I don’t support euthanasia in NZ.
I’ve heard the arguments, I’ve listened to the debate, and I just don’t support it.
“If you were an animal you wouldn’t let it suffer” – Yes but we aren’t animals are we. We are self-conscious free thinking human beings.
“Letting people live in pain is wrong”. Yes it is, and we have incredible pain management these days, only very rare cases are left to writhe in agony.
“People have the right to end their life”. No they don’t. They may have the right to commit suicide if you want to go that far, but the right to ask another to end their life? That’s not been agreed to at all! This is a decision whanau and the wider community are all party to because of it’s ramifications upon the very fabric of our society.
I have 3 main reasons I disagree with euthanasia in NZ.
The first is the type of person and the reasons they push for euthanasia. It always seems to me to be alpha type personalities. Over achievers, people of deep independence who pride themselves on that independence. People who would consider the embarrassment of being unable to control their body functions worse than death itself. Their demand for death revolves around their inability to control the process of death. That doesn’t warrant allowing another to administer a medical cocktail that ends life.
Which brings me to my second reason, the humility of death. Dying as a process isn’t supposed to be clean and efficient. It’s painful, it’s human, it requires the family and friends you’ve built in a lifetime to nurse you through your final moments. It is a deeply emotional time, a journey where the journey is far more important than the destination. The process of letting go, of saying goodbye is a deeply personal and intimate part of the human experience. To deny that is to deny one of the most important rituals of human life.
But the biggest reason I would never want euthanasia in NZ is Jenny Shipley.
READ MORE: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/06/09/for-act-euthanasia-is-a-free-market-solution-to-health-why-i-will-always-oppose-euthanasia-in-nz/
