Euthanasia defended

Press, 9 May 1979, Page 12

Euthanasia defended

PA Wellington The chairman of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society in Wellington, (Mrs P. Slater) said that recent remarks by the president of the Society for the Preservation of the Unborn Child (Mrs Marilyn Pryor) that the existence of euthanasia societies in New Zealand showed the need for her society to extend its work, could only cause unnecessary distress. “I am sure,” she said, “that Mrs Pryor is aware that the only euthanasia movements in this country are the two voluntary euthanasia societies, one in Wellington and the other in Auckland. It should be obvious from the inclusion in their titles of the word ‘voluntary’ that they pose no threat to anybody, involving as they do a strictly personal choice, not a decision made about someone else,” she said.

“Both societies,” said Mrs Slater “are as anxious as Mrs Pryor to protect every person’s right to life, but we do not see protection as encompassing insistence on life against a suffering patient’s wishes. What we uphold is the right of the individual to die with dignity when incurable disease, pain or incapacity render life no longer tolerable. We do not seek to impose such a decision on anyone. “But we do seek, by lawful means, to have the law changed to allow people in such circumstances to be helped, if they so wish, to hasten the inevitable end,” Mrs Slater said.