Finding peace on assisted dying

It’s almost a year since we decided we could choose, if we meet the criteria set out in the End of Life Choice Act, the time of our own death.

In two weeks the first of us will be allowed to make that decision, and I’m still agonising over my vote.

At the time we were asked to make two choices, both with massive implications. As I’ve written before, I fully supported the legalisation of cannabis – but I’ve remained uneasy about assisted dying.

My job as an opinion columnist is (surprise!) to have an opinion – preferably a strong and factually sound one. I spend many hours making sure I know the facts, to feel comfortable publishing my opinion.

I find that’s easy with cannabis. Like vaccination, it’s primarily a health issue.

But here we have the unknowable – death itself, but also how to accurately predict someone is close to death (and is therefore eligible). You might say my frustration is irrelevant – I am not the audience here. I fit neither criteria for strong feelings about assisted dying; I am not living with disabilities, and I do not, at this point, have a terminal illness that will end my life within six months.

But despite the fact that noone in my family, on either side, has died before the age of 90, family history is hardly a guarantee. One day it might be me.

And having second-guessed my decision for a year (I voted yes), I find I am unsettled by the approaching date of November 7. I don’t regret my decision, but neither do I feel I really know enough about death to choose.

I have almost no experience of death. I was in my thirties before I attended a funeral (a friend’s father). I was 13 when my grandfather died, but my parents did not allow my sister and me to see him in hospital, or attend his funeral a week or

Having secondguessed my decision for a year (I voted yes), I find I am unsettled by the approaching date of November 7.

so later.

As a parent myself, I favour going easy on my parents’ decision, which I’m sure was made in love. But it did not prepare me to face death, even all these years later.

When I moved to New Zealand, I became fascinated by traditions around death in te ao Ma¯ ori – the multi-day mourning at marae, the gathering of close wha¯ nau with the deceased in the wharemate. All of this made more sense to me than European practices which to me seemed to be based on fear of death.

It felt healthier, right down to the belief that the spirits of our tangata whe¯ nua travel via Cape Reinga to the homeland. What a lovely, uplifting belief, and what a comfort in a time of grief, that must be.

This week, I watched Koha Productions’ new series The Pact on TVNZ OnDemand. It was the first time I’d seen something show the effects assisted dying might have on a whole family.

The Pact is the story of Betty, matriarch (in the nicest way) of a soon-to-be four-generation family with its own secrets and struggles, like any other family.

It’s not a case study of New Zealand’s upcoming legal assisted dying because in real life, Betty would not qualify. She has dementia, and so she must rely on other means.

As a piece of telly, The Pact is lovely, and worth a watch, even if euthanasia is not a topic you’ve felt the need to connect with before now.

‘‘It’s such an emotive topic, and it’s hard to separate science and emotion,’’ showrunner Harry McNaughton told me. ‘‘For me, the biggest message is that communication and empathy is the biggest gift of the human experience.’’

My unease with the assisted dying legislation comes from what I’ve heard from the disabled community and their advocates. The idea that our disabled wha¯ nau might be coerced in some way to end their lives is abhorrent. Advocates of the legislation say it has sufficient safeguards to ensure that won’t happen.

There are a handful of other countries and states that have a few years’ experience of similar laws and their effects, and most seem to indicate the safeguards are working.

I dearly hope the proponents who say this legislation will keep our most vulnerable safe turn out to be right.