Originally published in The Age, 9 October 2017 by Marion Harris Most patients with incurable cancer battle to the end. They exhaust all evidence-based active treatment options and clinical trials before being told that supportive care measures are now best. A request to die is uncommon, and is often driven by poorly controlled pain or nausea, as well as fear, loss of function and hopelessness. Usually when pain and other …Read More
Originally published in the NZ Herald, 2 June 2016 Margaret Wong is a practising midwife who has also been a neonatal intensive care nurse and Plunket nurse during the past 40 years. Lizzie Marvelly is right; every woman should be able to make her own choices. Certainly in New Zealand, we have more choices than in any other time in history. New Zealand is probably one of the easiest countries …Read More
Originally published on ABC, 12 May 2016. By Rachael Wong Independent MP Rob Pyne has introduced a private member’s bill to amend Queensland’s abortion laws, which may allow women to undergo abortions through all nine months of pregnancy – up until birth. Pyne, who called the current law “archaic,” has said that his bill does not give a time limit for abortion and that he would “compromise” with MPs as …Read More
Rachael Wong is a lawyer from Auckland who is currently working as a legal consultant with the Law Reform Commission in Samoa. She has recently completed a Master of Bioethics and Health Law for which she wrote her dissertation on freedom of conscience in health care. She maintains that a health professional’s exercise of conscience is inseparable from their delivery of health care. Writing for First Things, Wesley J. Smith …Read More
Dr Samantha Murton, an NZHPA member and General Practitioner from Wellington, reflects on a recent death in her family. I was busily involved in our own personal experience of a gracious death with my Mother-in-Law. If I could say something now to the Health Select Committee on its Investigation into the Ending of One’s Life, it would be this. Knowing all that I know as a health professional, it was …Read More
Caroline Downey is a Kiwi currently based in London. In her submission to the Health Select Committee on the investigation into ending one’s life in New Zealand, she writes “we have to start talking about the problem of suicide in New Zealand – not the need for assisted suicide.” I oppose any legalisation of euthanasia or assisted suicide in New Zealand. On the 19th of October 2015, The Guardian published …Read More
Dr Lucia Mitchell is a General Practitioner and Palliative Care Doctor who works in Richmond, Nelson, New Zealand. She shares with us her submission to the Health Select Committee on the investigation into ending one’s life in New Zealand. I oppose any legalisation of euthanasia or assisted suicide in New Zealand. Death has in many ways been distanced from our daily lives and has become foreign, unfamiliar and feared. Health …Read More
By John Fox I’ve been sharing this when asked in various fora lately. If anyone wonders what I think of David Seymour’s iniquitous Bill, here it is. To begin with I should say two things; first, this is not abstract for me. I live with a mild form of cerebral palsy and various associated problems including spastic hemiplegia. I know from first-hand experience how hard it is to be physically …Read More
The NZHPA strongly encourages all New Zealand doctors to sign the Open Letter published by the Care Alliance opposing medical involvement in euthanasia and assisted suicide. The Care Alliance’s press release and Open Letter are re-published below: Wednesday, 9 December 2015, 3:47 pm Press Release: Care Alliance Doctors say no to assisted suicide New Zealand doctors are being invited to add their name to an Open Letter rejecting medical involvement …Read More
By Neil Vaney Introduction A recent post from Terry Bellamak, new president of the Abortion Law Rights Association of New Zealand (ALRANZ), questions why health professionals such as doctors and nurses should be legally able to use the claim of freedom of conscience in refusing to provide contraceptive or abortion advice or services. (http://wp.me/x1XY6w-z1, 14 Sep 2015). Bellamak likens this to the case of Kim Davis, county clerk of Rowan …Read More