Letters: Support for End of Life Choice Bill

A reader voices her support for the End of Life Choice Bill. Photo / File

In New Zealand, I comment that death is not a topic for over the teacups or around the family dinner table.

We still talk about a person "passing away" or having "passed on".

Some shudder at the words "death" or "dying".

I was fortunate as a student nurse of 17 years to witness my grandmother's death in most peaceful circumstances and that poignant image is still with me today.

Compare that with the only thing I remember about my mother's death was the pain - I know which death I would prefer.

Fifty-one years later I am a champion of EOLC, convinced through my nursing experiences, there has to be a better way, than the cruelty I have seen first hand for the terminally ill and their families.

I do not understand what opponents of the Bill have to gain.

How can a compassionate, peaceful and orchestrated death not be desirable for someone with a terminal illness, who has no chance of recovery, with ongoing pain guaranteed until the eventual release of death?

How can another human deny someone that choice?

The Bill is safe and protects the vulnerable. We have the benefit of reports from countries who have a working law for EOLC.

With this law and its strict protocol, all procedures are documented and checked carefully.

Before the law, there was a chance for coercion and malpractice. The "we knew it was going on" comment that people tell.

Medically-assisted dying is only for the dying and only then under certain extreme circumstances.

Tess Nesdale
Tauranga

Support for iwi

I would like to express support for the iwi decision to close certain access routes to Lake Rotokakahi (the Green Lake).

They have every right to do this.

The suggestion that those who ignore the signs and carry on should be educated is a naive one.

They are grossly ignorant and disrespectful.

Stick to your guns, iwi leaders.

A N Christie
Rotorua

Warnings have been liberal

Climate scientists have been warning for years, for decades even, but the Australian Liberal Govt is like the French Bourbon Ancien Régime, 'They know nothing and have learnt nothing'.

As for the Greens, they treat them like Cassandra, doomed to tell the future but be ignored, even blaming her for their own obduracy.

Mark Collet
Rotorua

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