Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Hi everybody. Welcome along to another episode of the Dispatchers podcast. My name is Brendan Malone. It is great to be back with you again. And today I want to take a deep dive into a story that I think is extremely disturbing in the nature of what is being presented to the New Zealand public here. There is a manipulation going on throughout this article, but it's more the fact that the way in which this manipulation is happening and the implications for what this means about where sympathy should lie, where genuine empathy should lie, and what it looks like to truly care for a person when they experience suffering related to healthcare. So let me just jump straight into the article. I'm gonna work my way through it and then I'm gonna comment as we go. Rick's Law the fight to change New Zealand's assisted dying after an 86 day death the week before Rick Weldon died, his wife Melissa read a newspaper story about a horse who had suffered for three days before a veterinarian decided that there was nothing more that could be done. It was subsequently euthanised. By then, her husband had spent almost three months trying to die. Excluded from New Zealand's assisted dying law, Rick had stopped eating and drinking.
[00:01:26] It took him 86 days to die. We'll come back to that point in just a second.
[00:01:33] It's incredible. Melissa wrote later that humans cannot receive the same humane treatment as that horse. And this is the first major red flag, because there is an ideology at play here that wants to suggest that we should treat human beings in the same low way that we treat animals.
[00:01:53] But we should never do that. That's the whole point. The reason why we don't put down human beings with medical suicide or medical homicide is exactly the same reason why we don't feed our relatives from a bowl on the floor or make them sleep outside in a kennel. They are not animals. The value of an animal lies solely in its utility to us.
[00:02:21] But a human person is not valued. Their worth is not determined by their utility.
[00:02:28] Their worth comes from the fact that they are a human person and they have human dignity and that human dignity can never be lost, regardless of the difficulties, the sufferings, the challenges, the changes and circumstances that are a normal part of the human experience.
[00:02:50] And so it's really troubling. We're back to this very simplistic but fundamentally flawed idea that we should start treating human beings in the same low way that we treat animals.
[00:03:01] No, we really shouldn't be doing that. We should care for a human person, not put them down.
[00:03:08] Secondly, it says here it took him 86 days to die. And that is a massive point in the story. And it seems it's not really being acknowledged or understood as it should be.
[00:03:21] A person who takes 86 days to die is a person who is not dying.
[00:03:28] This is not someone with a terminal illness. This is not someone who is on their way out.
[00:03:35] This is someone who has made a proactive decision with, it seems, the support of others to deliberately and intentionally end their own life. And even then it still took 86 days, which points to the fact that this person clearly was not even remotely close to death.
[00:03:55] In part one of this story, Nadine Roberts reports on the fight to change New Zealand's assisted dying laws after one man's prolonged death exposed their limits.
[00:04:06] That article and that framing of this article, this is the introduction to the article, by the way. That second paragraph in the article clearly is indicating to me that, that this is, some would call it advocacy journalism. I think in this case it's not unreasonable to call it political activist journalism. It's not really journalism that's being done here. Now. This is someone who is engaging in activism for a law change. And that is a completely different thing. Nadine Roberts now has effectively excused herself from the business of impartial journalism at this point. When you are writing paragraphs like that, that indicates that this is activism rather than just reporting on events. Secondly, it's clear the framing of this paragraph indicates that this has been set up as a type of crusade, a type of cause, and the expectation is that the public will get behind this. And once again, this raises serious questions about the nature of what is going on here and the role of the media in all of this. It seems that there is a very clear conflict of interest at play. Now lastly, this is part one, which indicates there are multiple parts to come. This has all the hallmarks of being an organised campaign.
[00:05:27] I don't know who is behind this, but this does not look particularly organic and it is not typical in the way that you would expect a story that's just reporting on an incident typical to play out. This looks more like something that is a lot more coordinated. So there are some serious questions, I think, here about all of this. Rick Weldon did everything the law allowed him to do. He underwent four spinal operations and sought specialist advice. When that route led to a dead end, he investigated traveling overseas for assisted dying, only to discover it would cost tens of thousands of dollars. And already this is the very disturbing aspect of this story that I was alluding to earlier.
[00:06:13] What's happening here is that effectively we are subtly being primed and encouraged to think of a medical suicide or a medical homicide as being the same thing as genuine care for a person who is suffering.
[00:06:31] We are being primed to have sympathy with, not for the person and the situation they find themselves in, and not for a lack of care. But we are being primed to have sympathy for the fact that they couldn't get easy access to medical homicide or medical suicide. And that is extremely disturbing.
[00:06:53] Where our authentic, humane sympathies should lie is with the man in this situation and with the lack of care that he is receiving. And we should have genuine empathy and a genuine sympathy and even a sense of frustration at the injustice of someone who's not able to be cared for well.
[00:07:14] But this article is priming us to think that we should have sorrow about the fact that he was not able to easily access suicide. And that is extremely troubling. Rick then inquired about New Zealand's assisted dying service, but was told he he didn't qualify because his condition wasn't considered terminal. And that is correct. And the fact that it took him 86 days to die, even though he's intentionally trying to bring that about, is a very clear indication of how far from death this man actually was. And I know some people might think, gosh, Brendan, that sounds a little bit blunt and straight to the point on your part, but I don't really believe that we should be beating about the bush anymore. There is too much at stake here. There are far too many vulnerable Kiwis who will become the victim of this madness if we allow it to expand any further. It's already a great risk. And so we just need to talk plainly now. As Bob Dylan once sang in all along the Watchtower, the hour is getting late. Let us not talk falsely now.
[00:08:14] Left with no legal pathway to the death he wanted, Rick chose another one that is allowed. It has a clinical name, Voluntary Stopping eating and Drinking.
[00:08:26] But in layman's terms, it's when a person deliberately refuses food and fluids to allow their body to die.
[00:08:33] VSED is recognised in medical ethics as a patient's right to refuse treatment including food and fluids, provided they have decision making capacity. Now, it's a little bit more than that actually. And this is the key thing I think, to understand here.
[00:08:49] There is a difference between someone who is voluntarily stopping food and fluids and someone who is trying to starve themselves or dehydrate themselves to death.
[00:09:03] And it seems to me that this reporting is failing to acknowledge the clear difference here. There is a Huge difference.
[00:09:11] And I think this is important to understand and I think this complexity is not even really factored into what we are reading here.
[00:09:21] Rick believed it would take about 16 days to die. It took 86.
[00:09:27] When Rick Weldon greeted you, there was a good chance you'd get one of his trademark bear hugs. Friends came to expect them. So this is the part of the story now where we actually get into a bit more of who the man is.
[00:09:39] And again, this is the sort of campaign angle. There is an attempt to try and bring you onside with a narrative that is trying to pull people into a very emotional, deep emotional connection that will then cause them to support whatever is being proposed. And as I always say to people, it is really important to stop in those moments, don't allow our passions to actually take the driving seat. And we need to have a balance, a genuine empathy for the man and his situation, but also a clear sighted, rational thinking that allows us not to get pulled into a very bad legislative outcome in this case case.
[00:10:16] He loved the outdoors, paddled waka ama at national level, traveled extensively before finding a home with soulmate Melissa in Queenstown. Although 72, Rick still thought of himself as the sort of man who belonged on the water, in the mountains or planning the next adventure. To be fair, this sounds like a guy who is, I'd say, very typically sort of kiwi and a guy who just loves life and that's a good and beautiful thing.
[00:10:41] Then in early 2024, his legs stopped working. Within four weeks, a man who could comfortably run 12 kilometres found himself struggling to walk 12 steps.
[00:10:51] The pain, he said, was relentless and that must have been truly hard for someone who clearly is, would it be fair to say, a type A personality, but someone who clearly is very driven, who has a real passion for outdoors and physical activity and then all of a sudden they find that their body age is catching up and their body is no longer cooperating with the life they would desire to live.
[00:11:15] Scans revealed severe spinal stenosis throughout his lumbar spine, compounded by scoliosis. Surgeons attempted to rebuild his back over six months. Rick underwent four major operations and 12 screws, rods and spacers were inserted. But complications followed.
[00:11:34] And I've heard this before and I've read this in other places as well, that back surgery can be notoriously difficult. And I believe the older you get to, the more the challenges can really present themselves. Hardware loosened and infection set in. Each operation solved one problem only for another to emerge. By late 2024, his surgeon presented him with one final Option that involved removing all the existing hardware, leaving his spine open for days while infection was treated before reconstructing almost his entire back. With 20 new screws, the chance of success was about 35%. But with long term pain and suffering.
[00:12:17] So Rick said no.
[00:12:19] We first spoke to Rick two days before he stopped eating and drinking. The roadmap is clear. He shrugged. I'll be bedridden in the coming weeks. I'll be incontinent. I'll lose control of my bowels, and I don't want to put my wife through that.
[00:12:33] And to me, this is an interesting statement to make because if I was in his situation, I'm a married man, if I didn't want to put my wife through that, and I knew that my actions were about to induce that very thing, then I wouldn't put my wife through that. I would choose differently. But he made a choice.
[00:12:52] It is incongruent with, with basic common sense to say, well, I don't want to put my wife through that after you've chosen to make a decision that will actually induce that very situation.
[00:13:05] He wasn't frightened of dying, but was frightened of what came before it. Rick had accepted there would be no miracle. Instead, he faced a slow and irreversible loss of his body. I wait every six hours for my pain medication, he said bluntly. That's my life.
[00:13:21] I can do nothing.
[00:13:22] And when I read that statement, I feel a sense of sorrow in my heart for this man.
[00:13:28] And I think to myself, where is the community in this moment? And I'm not pointing fingers here, I'm asking what I think is a fundamentally essential question.
[00:13:38] Where is the community?
[00:13:40] When a person is in this type of need, consistently, I've seen this, I've experienced it with people in my own life close to me.
[00:13:47] I've read about cases like this over and over again.
[00:13:50] And it seems to me that the only way out is through and through with the support of other caring people around you to help draw you out of your own psychological bubble. Effectively, pain is a very awful thing like that. I have experienced back pain, serious back pain in my life. And I remember several years ago when it was really at its peak. And I remember lying on my lounge floor and I had just taken yet another round of ibuprofen and nothing appeared to be working.
[00:14:26] I felt weak. I felt like there was no way through this and it was so soul destroying. And I really did, in that moment, understand what happens when people believe that there is no other way out and they start to think Thoughts that are not healthy and good, like ending their own life with medical suicide or medical homicide would be a good thing to do.
[00:14:51] The interesting thing is that when you're on the other side of that, you look back and you think, man, I remember those moments and it just felt like you were never going to get out of them. It felt like there was no other way out. It literally was like a black box and you couldn't see, you couldn't even imagine a way out. And you also have this added stress where you start anticipating bodily the pain to arrive.
[00:15:16] So even when you're not in pain, you are constantly preparing for pain. And that takes a huge toll on your psychology and your well being as well. This is precisely why you need good people around you to journey with you in those moments.
[00:15:31] Under New Zealand's End of Life Choice act, eligibility is deliberately narrow. A person must be suffering from a terminal illness that is likely to end their life within six months, among other criteria. And that's a really important point because that was exactly the intention of our parliament and that is exactly what people in New Zealand voted for. So if we're now gonna have politicians who begin inserting themselves into this situation and then suggesting that we need to change this law, I think that's a fundamental question they have got to address.
[00:16:00] This law was only passed a matter of years ago and the intent was clear and it was also backed in that current form by the New Zealand people. So no, you don't actually just get to wholesale now. Come back and make it look like this whole thing was a trick that the New Zealand people were deceived the first time around. In other words, this was nothing more than a wedge legislation. This was a foot in the door where you actually wedge the door open. You fool the electorate into thinking they're voting for one thing and then you come back later and you always had the clear intent of introducing a more extreme version of the legislation. And by the way, there's something interesting. You might have noticed it earlier on when the reporter says, we first spoke to Rick two days before he stopped eating and drinking. Remember that as we carry on with the story. Rick met almost every requirement of the euthanasia law in New Zealand, but not that one. His spine was failing, his quality of life had vanished, pain was constant. Yet doctors could not say he was likely to die within six months.
[00:17:03] That single criterion closed the door on assisted dying. Rick made one thing clear. He didn't want to kill himself, but he wanted permission to die, which he believed was profoundly different.
[00:17:15] Suicide was a solitary act, he said, whereas assisted dying was society acknowledging that despite every available treatment, his suffering was unbearable. I don't want to die by suicide, he said. I hope politicians understand that this isn't about wanting to die, it's about not wanting to live like this. And I'm sorry, but this is actually a distinction without a difference. And this has been a long standing problem with the pro euthanasia movement. They have consistently tried to fudge this essential moral point.
[00:17:49] It is actually suicide, it is actually an act of homicide if you deliberately end a patient's life, even if they're asking for that.
[00:17:59] And so to then turn around and say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, assisted dying is something different. It's just society acknowledging that his suffering was unbearable. No, we've already done that. And I think we can acknowledge here this suffering is difficult and possibly even depending on all the things we don't know about his case and the treatment that he got and to what degree he was offered, the full range of treatments, et cetera, et cetera, we could even acknowledge that it was unbearable. But that's all that is someone acknowledging or a society acknowledging that it's unbearable. But euthanasia, assisted suicide are a whole different thing. They go a whole nother step. It's not just acknowledging something, it's actively doing a thing. And that thing is either suicide or it is homicide. And if we are now going to be manipulate New Zealand society into accepting this idea, then the danger becomes even more acute because what we're doing now is opening up the pathway for other vulnerable people, perhaps people who just experience mental health issues and believe the way that he does, that their life was unbearable. And then they create this philosophy for themselves where they are claiming, no, no, no, what I'm doing is not actually suicide. What I'm doing is simply acknowledging that my suffering is unbearable.
[00:19:14] On March 20, Rick stopped eating and drinking. Research suggested death would likely come within 16 days. Now remember again, this reporter spoke to him two days before that. So on March 18th.
[00:19:27] So he and Melissa planned accordingly. Two days prior to the fast, he said goodbye to friends, some of whom had come from his birth country of America. There were plenty of hugs and reminiscing. And although Rick was largely immobile, his wit was still razor sharp. To some he looked better than most middle aged men. And that would probably explain why it took so long for him to die. But never far away, there were vials of morphine that took the edge off the pain but never erased it.
[00:19:55] Sixteen days came and went. But Rick was still alive. Then came day 20 and day 30, with no sign he'd quietly let go. Melissa recalls how each morning began with the same question as today the day. But by each evening the answer was no.
[00:20:10] We expected it to be difficult, she says. What we didn't expect was the intensity of his suffering. It wasn't just physical pain, it was mental, emotional and spiritual. And again, we need to go back and be very clear eyed about how this happened.
[00:20:23] This is a level of suffering that was separate to the back condition.
[00:20:29] This is suffering that has been induced by his proactive choice to do this.
[00:20:36] As his condition deteriorated, Melissa found herself navigating a health system that had little experience with patients choosing vsed, including prescriptions that vanished at pharmacies. Questions emerged over who should care for him, how his symptoms should be managed, and what role hospitals, palliative care services and emergency responders should play when a patient had deliberately refused food and fluids but was not eligible for assisted dying. And you see, this is the key ethical point at the heart of this and to me it is absolutely outrageous that this fundamental ethical question is just being glossed over like it doesn't really matter.
[00:21:15] What you have here is a man who has chosen to use starvation and dehydration as a suicide method. And so of course that is going to raise serious moral issues and ethical questions about exactly what role the system should have in this. Effectively, what's going on here is you've got someone who is engaging in their own self inflicted form of death and they also want the state, which does not actually support such things, to participate in the act as well and enable this action to happen as they desire. And the problem here is that our prior legalisation of assisted suicide and euthanasia has weakened our defences against, against this type of thing and has created all sorts of new problems and confusions on the back of changing that law to allow medical homicide and medical suicide to be carried out by the New Zealand state.
[00:22:14] The plan he and Melissa carefully prepared began to unravel. She reached out to numerous agencies and social workers asking for advice and help, but to no avail.
[00:22:23] As the days rolled on, Rick became increasingly desperate. This wasn't what I expected, he said tearfully on a voicemail. Why am I still here? Now? I'm assuming that this voicemail is him speaking to the reporter.
[00:22:37] Again, keep that in mind, because this for me raises serious questions about the nature of what the reporter is doing in the production of the story and her involvement in this story.
[00:22:51] Melissa's calls for Help became more frequent. In the darkest moments, Melissa say's Rick's desperation became so intense, he reportedly tried to suffocate himself. She watched, powerless, as the man who had spent his life embracing challenges and adventures reached a point where he was trying to end his suffering. And again, my heart just breaks because what this man needs is the loving care of the community to remind him that his life still matters, he still has dignity, even though he has lost capacity.
[00:23:24] By the end of the third week, she realized they had entered territory no one had prepared them for. With Rick still fully conscious, it became very clear that something in the management of his care was going terribly wrong. But remember, this is not care anymore. This is an attempt to deliberately end a person's life. And so this is the thing that I find most disturbing, this conflating of care with something that is not care in the eyes of the law. Rick wasn't dying, even though he was, he wasn't. Well, that's because he wasn't dying. He's trying to induce and make himself dead. That's different.
[00:24:02] His case occupied a grey area in the health system. Hospital records repeatedly note he was ineligible for publicly funded palliative care because he did not have a terminal diagnosis. And this is a really important point to note. And a big question looms over that little statement.
[00:24:18] And the question is this, should someone who actually has genuine terminal illness be deprived of medical resources from a palliative care service because someone else who was choosing to deliberately end their own life by suicide has now taken their spot and is taking those resources for themselves?
[00:24:41] And I think that's a very important question for everybody involved to consider.
[00:24:46] So clinicians instead adjusted his medications, arranged district nursing support and tried to find ways to keep him safe at home. Melissa does not dispute that medications were altered regularly, but says the experience often felt fragmented. Different people seemed to have different understandings of what should happen next. One discharge summary suggested Melissa consider taking sick leave from work because Rick became anxious, but when left alone, while another proposed residential care, if he no longer felt safe at home. And to me, there's this awful, diabolical irony in this.
[00:25:20] Here is a man who is deliberately choosing to end his own life and he's talking about loneliness, he's talking about not feeling safe.
[00:25:30] And I think to myself, this is a vulnerable man. Why can no one see this? Why can't they look beyond the actual words he's saying and recognise there's something deeper going on in this man's life that needs care and not killing it begged the question how should someone be cared for when they have lawfully chosen to stop eating and drinking to hasten death?
[00:25:55] During one admission to Lakes District Hospital in late April, doctors increased Rick's methadone, introduced amitriptyline, regular paracetamol and discussed additional options, including cannabid oil. We have lots of options available for you. One discharge summary states. Despite that, the admissions continued. And again, this raises another question. Why were those options not pursued? What was it that prevented that? Was it an active decision not to pursue them? Or was it a lack of care?
[00:26:24] Hospital records show Rick was admitted on numerous occasions as new complications emerged, like hallucinations, respiratory secretions, burning mouth pain, agitation and anxiety.
[00:26:36] For most patients approaching death, specialist palliative services coordinate symptom control and end of life support. While Rick was dying from hunger, he wasn't dying from a disease doctors classified as terminal. The consequence followed a harsh pattern of moving Rick between hospital and home, interdispersed with medication adjustments and and responsibilities, shifting between GPs and hospital staff, but with no long term service. And again, we need to go back to the original point.
[00:27:05] This is someone who is choosing to proactively end their life.
[00:27:11] There is a massive ethical issue here.
[00:27:15] And the moment you say the system should start assisting in that is the moment you're in a real state of crisis. I would humbly suggest.
[00:27:23] On top of that, different clinicians appeared to have different understandings of the law, with hospital records, emails and interviews showing it was unfamiliar territory for them. Melissa said many staff were personally kind, particularly one hospital doctor who coordinated directly with the pharmacy, GP and family. But she said the wider experience often felt defensive rather than compassionate.
[00:27:45] Teams would come into Rick's room two or three at a time. One would talk, one would answer questions, one would write everything down. It often felt defensive rather than supportive. Melissa expected to spend Rick's final moments saying goodbye. But instead police were present and his death was referred to the coroner. Melissa felt like a criminal, which compounded an already devastating few months.
[00:28:07] The system denied him a dignified death, she says, and I'm sorry, but that is not actually true.
[00:28:13] The system did not deny him a dignified death at all.
[00:28:17] He made a decision that led to the very death and the experience of death that he underwent. The system didn't choose that for him, he chose that.
[00:28:27] Then it stripped away our final moments together. Again, that's not what happened.
[00:28:33] And I say this with a recognition that she obviously must be going through all sorts of awful trauma now, and also grief over the loss of her beloved. But at the same time again, we must be very clear eyed about all of this. It was an active choice that was made that created this very outcome stuff asked Health New Zealand a series of detailed questions about Rick's care but has not yet responded. I think that means to say but they have or it has not yet responded. An official Information act request for further records has been made but at the time of publication hadn't been released. And then what we've got is this tomorrow, the fight over whether New Zealand's assisted dying laws should change and why Rick's death has become a catalyst for that debate.
[00:29:23] Now let's just take a little moment to think about what's happened here.
[00:29:27] You've got a journalist who has been engaged with this man from several, at least several days, possibly more, before he even began the process of attempting to end his own life deliberately by starvation and dehydration.
[00:29:49] And clearly there are indications throughout that process as well.
[00:29:53] And this whole thing, there seems to be a clear blurring of boundaries here.
[00:30:00] And it seems to me the New Zealand public, I think deserve better than this. What I mean by that is someone masquerading that they are doing journalism when in actual fact they are not doing journalism, they are doing political activism.
[00:30:16] And it's very clear, like read that final statement tomorrow, the fight over whether New Zealand's assisted dying laws should change and why Rick's death has become a catalyst for that debate.
[00:30:29] But with all due respect, whether or not Rick's taking of his own life, committing suicide will become a catalyst for that debate has not yet been determined.
[00:30:40] So to write that statement clearly implies that that's what they are trying to compel and manipulate the New Zealand people into turning this into a crusade and using him to be the emotive face and narrative of for that campaign.
[00:30:57] Either that or they are exploiting this man's death and suffering in a truly egregious way to try and sell more copy.
[00:31:09] Because I can't see any other justification for the framing of this story the way that it has been framed. But it will be the New Zealand public who will decide whether or not this will actually be a catalyst for any debate.
[00:31:24] And it's quite astounding to me to see it written in this way.
[00:31:28] And it also seems to me that there is another extremely serious question at the heart of this story and that is this. It's one thing to report on an incident, but it's another thing to report about an incident when the timing of the reporting may have a tangible and serious impact. Upon the outcome.
[00:31:54] So in this case, when you first find out about the story, if you go to print within a matter of days, explaining that there is a man in New Zealand who is now attempting to end his own life through starvation and dehydration, there is a real possibility that, that a renewed and proper level of care might be brought to bear in this situation, and that this person might experience such a change in circumstances, even if it's solely at the level of their psychological and mental health, that they do not end up dying as a result of what they have undertaken.
[00:32:38] There is no denying the fact that.
[00:32:41] That it is a far more salacious story to be reporting about a man who has starved himself to death than it is to have a situation where someone is in the process of doing that, and then all of a sudden the story radically changes and they actually get proper care and support and nurturing, and they don't go through with the actual.
[00:33:08] That means that this person does not become a political crusader who ends their own life as a political act, because that's exactly what appears to have happened here.
[00:33:20] And that is extremely troubling.
[00:33:23] And it is really, really troubling that the media has been so intimately involved in this process from before it actually started.
[00:33:34] The question in my mind is, what actually is in the public interest here? Surely it is in the best public interest for this man to receive proper care.
[00:33:46] And so therefore, reporting this story urgently and with an immediacy of going to print is actually the right and ethical thing to do here. At the very least, it seems to me that this is extremely irresponsible conduct on the part of the media.
[00:34:05] Like the fact that nobody stopped to consider the possibility that this man's life could have been saved potentially by an earlier and more immediate reporting of his situation.
[00:34:19] Now, I'm not sure who was responsible for this decision, but this journalist knew for almost three months, months, what this man was doing, because she had contacted him and spoken to him two days before he had begun the process of ending his own life.
[00:34:38] And yet no story was published until almost two months after he had died.
[00:34:46] Almost a full five months has now elapsed since the journalist first made contact with that man. And he told her what he was going to do and how he was going to end his own life. And the point at which they actually published a story about what this man was doing and the way this story is written, it seems to imply that they checked in on him at least once during the process of him ending his own life.
[00:35:22] Again, could this man's life have been saved. If there was more urgency in the reporting and if we're just going to turn around and say, well, this is just what living in a liberal society is all about, he made his own choice, then I would say that we have become disturbingly indifferent to the suffering of our neighbor. If we've got to the point where we see a man who is deliberately ending his own life because of the healthcare challenges that he faces and we are just responding by saying, oh well, that's his choice, we don't have any obligation to him, then that paints a very, very disturbing picture about the state of New Zealand and how little regard we actually have now for our neighbourhood when they are in a state of distress.
[00:36:15] Now, I want to be very clear here. I am not making any sort of allegation against anybody in this situation.
[00:36:23] I am simply raising what strikes me as a very troubling and very important question about the role of the media and how they should be conducting themselves in situations like this which are literally life or death.
[00:36:42] Now here's the thing that disturbs me most.
[00:36:45] What's happening here is not simply manipulation, but we are being manipulated in an effort to try and make us, the New Zealand public, adopt the belief that ending someone's life deliberately simply because they experience suffering is actually something that should be legal in this country. It should be considered dignified to do this.
[00:37:12] This is a major shift from where we are right now.
[00:37:17] And it has only taken us a matter of years to get to this point since introducing legalised euthanasia and legalised assisted suicide in this country. And here we are now proposing going down the same disastrous path as Canada where euthanasia becomes the thing we do to people who are experiencing suffering instead of actually health care.
[00:37:45] It has been an absolute disaster in Canada and the stories, they are wall to wall and they keep coming and they are horrific.
[00:37:54] And that's what this proposal wants us to embrace and adopt in New Zealand. And it is just frightening to me that this is where we are now at.
[00:38:05] I hope that people will read this story and they will be able to look past the clear emotional manipulation that is going on. They'll be able to look past the passions of this incident and think in a more clear eyed way. They'll be able to recognize that a proactive decision was made here. They'll be able to recognize that the system didn't do anything to this person.
[00:38:30] They'll be able to recognise that this is an incident where clearly someone set out proactively not just to end their own life, but to turn that into a political campaign to try and manipulate the public into supporting a change of legislation, which would be disastrous for so many vulnerable people in our country.
[00:38:57] What we need right now is not more emotion. We need to dial that back. What we need right now in this moment is clear eyed common sense, clear eyed moral thinking, clear eyed rationality about all that has gone on here, and also the implications of embarking upon such a drastic change to New Zealand law. And I think it's also important that we have a clear eyed sense of inquiry and questioning about the role of the media in all of this.
[00:39:34] Thank you for tuning in. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And I'll see you next time on the Dispatches.
[00:39:48] Sa.
