What was already legal and ethical?
Legal and Ethical End of Life Care Medical Choices
The options below are legal and ethical ways of helping someone to allow the dying process to take its natural course, without engaging medical professionals in euthanasia. There is a distinct difference between stopping life-saving treatment and intentionally injecting a lethal drug to kill someone. Unfortunately, most New Zealanders didn’t know these options were already available before the End of Life Choice Act was introduced, and there is confusion and misconception around what each involves.
Choosing to turn off life support in unrecoverable cases
74% of New Zealanders mistakenly think that the End of Life Choice Act would make it legal to turn off life support. This is not true. This practice is already legal in New Zealand. There has never been any legal or ethical issue with turning off life support when a patient is in a state they cannot recover from.
Choosing to have a ‘Do not resuscitate’ order
70% of Kiwis incorrectly think that the End of Life Choice Act will allow them to choose to not be resuscitated. This is already legal in New Zealand. There has never been any legal or ethical issue with patients opting for a ‘Do not resuscitate’ order.
The right to refuse treatment
It is already legal to refuse treatment or stop receiving life-saving or life-prolonging treatment at any time. This is a right that we already have in New Zealand.
Palliative sedation to relieve suffering at end of life
Palliative sedation is a recognised and legal medical practice in New Zealand, used in the final stages of life to relieve severe and otherwise uncontrollable suffering. It involves carefully administered medication to reduce a patient’s level of consciousness when symptoms such as pain, breathlessness, or distress cannot be managed in any other way. The medications used are not given in doses intended to be lethal, and the purpose is not to cause death, but to ease suffering.
This is an important distinction — unlike euthanasia, palliative sedation aims to provide comfort and allow the dying process to take its natural course when all other treatments have failed.