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Matt Vickers is celebrating the landslide victory of the End of Life Election Law referendum in a truly New Zealand way, despite being on the other side of the world, with a mince pie and cheese and a chocolate lamington.
Preliminary figures from the Election Commission show that 65 percent of New Zealanders, more than 1.5 million people, voted in favor of the law, which will allow terminally ill adults less than six months old to apply for death. assisted.
The referendum, partly inspired by the life, struggle, and death of Vickers’ wife, Lecretia Seales, came after three failed attempts to legislate the issue over 25 years.
MATT VICKERS
Matt Vickers and Lecretia Seales in 2010. Seales became a prominent figure in the fight for the end-of-life choice before dying in 2015 of terminal brain cancer.
Vickers is now filled with “relief and gratitude” that, after a generation, the assisted death legislation was finally passed.
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Seales, a Wellington attorney, became a leading advocate for end-of-life choice when he was terminally ill from brain cancer.
In 2015, he asked the Superior Court to clarify the law to have the option of a doctor’s assistance to die if his suffering became intolerable.
The 42-year-old died the same day. Signs Against the Attorney General – rejecting your request – it was made public.
His plight shed light on the end-of-life choice and helped spark an emotional debate in New Zealand.
Vickers, talking to Things from New York, said it was not just a great afternoon for him, but for the country.
“It is an amazing result.”
Vickers heard the result while at a party hosted by ACT Party leader David Seymour in Parliament on Friday afternoon, where he spoke with several other activists about the trip today.
MATT VICKERS / Supplied
Seales and Vickers in 2004. Vickers said the result was gratifying – knowing that the effort and energy of many people who were ill or had lost loved ones had had a positive outcome.
“A lot of people sacrificed their privacy, their health, their time, their energy,” those who were terminally ill and those who had lost loved ones to terminally ill, to tell their stories and bring about a change in the law, he said.
“It is very gratifying to know that all that effort and sacrifice made a difference in the law.”
Vickers said he had rewarded himself with some “very hard to come by” Kiwi classics to mark the result.
“It’s a really happy time.”
The referendum came five years after Seymour introduced the end-of-life election bill into the cookie tin, but it was not the first time such legislation had been attempted.
THINGS
Explanation of the Law of choosing the end of life. (Video first published July 2020)
In 2012, then-Labor MP Maryan Street introduced a similar bill to Parliament, which was later withdrawn.
Speaking from Seymour’s party in Parliament on Friday afternoon, Street said Things she was “elated” that about two-thirds of New Zealanders had voted in favor of the law.
The atmosphere in Parliament was “jubilant,” he said.
“The place erupted with applause and cheers, hugs and some crying, so much so that we completely drowned [deputy ACT leader] Brooke Van Velden’s report of the results “.
It took a few minutes before the “enormity” of the vote really hit people, he said.
Street said people had been waiting for this for a long time, so she was “delighted” that the country had made this decision, despite “mischievous and deceptive” opposition during the campaign.
Ross Giblin
Former Labor MP Maryan Street also introduced a members’ end-of-life bill back in 2012. She was “elated” by the referendum result.
For her personally, the result was a victory to savor as the culmination of nine years of work, and it was a “great victory” for grassroots activists who “never gave up despite years of setbacks, compromises and deliberate misinformation from the leaders. opponents “.
“I am immensely grateful to all those who have supported this cause, and there are many thousands of them.”
However, he said the victory did not indicate that “unethical and dishonest” tactics in opposition to the act would disappear.
“There will be a need for continued vigilance to ensure that the democratic will of the public is not undermined,” he said.
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Sir Michael Cullen, who has terminal lung cancer and has voiced his support for the End of Life Choice Act, said he was very pleased with the outcome.
Former Deputy Prime Minister and Attorney General Sir Michael Cullen, who has stage 4 small cell lung cancer, said he was “very pleased” with the outcome of the referendum.
Cullen, 75, joined the “yes” campaign following her diagnosis earlier this year.
He said Things he believed the law would mean New Zealanders “will have the option of a more dignified way out of life.”
Cullen said the victory was a clearer majority than he expected.
He said that there was enough information and different points of view on the subject that people could not dismiss the result as a decision made by people “in a vacuum, or with some degree of lack of information.”
“It is a very clear result. New Zealand as a whole has spoken clearly on the matter. “
Overall, more than 2.4 million New Zealanders voted in the referendum earlier in the month.
About two-thirds (65 percent) voted for the law, while about 34 percent voted “no.”
One percent of the votes, 25,073, was null.
