Years after her death, my wife may yet change New Zealand’s law on euthanasia – The Guardian

In 2014, my terminally ill wife, Lecretia Seales, informed me that she would like to have a choice about how she died. She was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2011, and after three years, her treatments were no longer effective. She had come to accept that her death was inevitable.

She had watched Terry Pratchetts lecture, Shaking Hands with Death, and she believed, like Pratchett, that she should be able to have a say about how her death might happen.

I am not afraid of dying, but I am petrified by what may happen to me in the lead-up to my death, Lecretia said at the time. My greatest fear is that my husband will have a mad wife to deal with, like Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre. As far as Im concerned, if I get to a point where I can no longer recognise or communicate with my husband, then for all intents and purposes, I will already be dead.

Lecretia was an accomplished law reformer who had worked for two New Zealand prime ministers. She sensed an injustice, and she decided to challenge the government for the right to be assisted to die.

In May 2015, Seales v Attorney General was front page news. My wife was pulled into a media maelstrom, and her family and I were reluctantly dragged in with her.

By the time the court case ended, Lecretia was confined to a wheelchair and in rapid decline. It took seven days for the final ruling to be delivered to her, and it was provided to us under a 24-hour embargo. She did not get the ruling she sought. And that night, the last of her energy expended, she died, aged 42.

Although the case did not go her way, Justice Collins made several significant and helpful rulings:

Between 5% and 8% of all suicides in New Zealand are attributable to people avoiding the worst of their terminal illnesses. An assisted dying law might help prevent people taking their own lives.

Evidence from both sides showed that palliative care could not alleviate all suffering. Like medicine, palliative care is not perfect and will occasionally fail us.

Lecretia was a competent individual who was not vulnerable. If a law were available, her desire to use it should be respected, and her competence not questioned.

On Wednesday night, the end of life choice bill passed its third and final reading, with 69 votes in favour and 51 against. David Seymour the bills sponsor and leader of a party-of-one has achieved an unprecedented outcome, though not without compromise.

MPs from National and Labour, the two major parties, had a range of concerns and were free to vote according to their conscience, while the Green party insisted that their eight votes would be given only if the bill were restricted to the terminally ill. In response, Seymour narrowed the focus of the bill to ensure support without losing its general tenor.

The final version of the bill restricts access to assisted dying to terminally ill New Zealanders, who are suffering intolerably, who are mentally competent, who are over 18, and whose death is reasonably foreseeable within six months. All of these criteria must be met.

A doctor is not allowed to suggest assisted dying. The request must be initiated by and pursued by the patient. The doctor is obliged to stop the process should they have even the slightest suspicion the patient is being coerced. Doctors who fail to follow the letter of the law would face criminal sanctions.

Anyone attempting to coerce someone would continue to be guilty of a serious crime.

New Zealand First, another minority party, pledged their nine votes on one condition: that the bills enactment is subject to a general referendum. This condition was attached to the final version of the bill last month, and that bill was passed into law on Wednesday night.

New Zealand will have a referendum on the end of life choice bill within the next 12 months. New Zealanders are being asked to vote on a fully drafted law that has been forged in the fire of two years of heated parliamentary debate. They can either accept the law as written, or reject it.

If public support holds, it should pass. In 2018, a University of Otago researcher reviewed the history of all assisted dying polls in New Zealand and concluded that support for some form of assisted dying legislation averages at 68%, with 15% opposed.

Today, Lecretia is back on the front pages of New Zealands newspapers, almost five years after her death. When I look at her now after so long, I see two women: the woman I knew and loved, and the woman now widely known to many as a symbol of compassion and personal freedom. She was so brave. She took a deeply personal time in her life and made it public. On Wednesday, her actions helped change history, and I couldnt be more proud of her. She may yet change the world.

Matt Vickers is the widower of assisted dying campaigner Lecretia Seales, and the author of Lecretias Choice (Text Publishing)

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Years after her death, my wife may yet change New Zealand's law on euthanasia - The Guardian