Dying New Zealand doctor calls for legal euthanasia

Jul 21, 2010, 3:03 GMT

Wellington - A retired New Zealand doctor dying from a terminal illness has launched a campaign for voluntary euthanasia to be legalized as a basic human right.

Dr John Pollock, 61, of Auckland, who has metastatic melanoma and has been given only months to live, was quoted in Wednesday's New Zealand Herald as saying the law banning euthanasia was 'cruel, outdated and unnecessary.'

He wrote a letter published in the latest New Zealand Doctor magazine urging colleagues to write to members of Parliament and the New Zealand Medical Association calling for a change in the law.

'Both will need a lot of pushing to act,' he wrote, calling the NZMA's opposition to voluntary euthanasia 'unfathomable.'

'The law insists we must provide only ameliorative help while patients may reach the most appallingly wretched states, sometimes akin to those who died of starvation in Nazi concentration camps,' Pollock wrote.

'Ironically, if we allowed a cat or a dog or a horse to reach such a condition we would be breaking the law and risking a prison sentence.

'My cancer may kill me in a variety of ways, some very unpleasant and drawn-out,' he wrote. 'There are several scenarios which I would find intolerable and should be able to opt out of, but for our old- fashioned, ill-thought-out, cruel laws, which force me to suffer to the end or kill myself.'

He retired after being diagnosed in December and was told about four months ago that he might have six to nine months to live.

Pollock said that if he was 'lucky enough,' he could have a quick death from a stroke or pneumonia.

'Unfortunately, what can happen is you can get a really prolonged death.'

Pollock said it was unfair that if he lived in Holland, Belgium or some US states he would have the option of ending his life if his condition deteriorated to a point where he was suffering, but in New Zealand he faced a death he could not control.

He said he favoured a change to the Dutch law, which requires 'your own doctor and an independent doctor to be convinced that you are suffering, are terminal and are not being coerced before agreeing to your request.'