Election 2020: Former Prime Minister Sir John Key Says He Will Vote ‘Yes’ On Euthanasia Referendum

Former Prime Minister Sir John Key says he will vote to legalize euthanasia in New Zealand because of the heartbreaking impact his mother’s Alzheimer’s had in her final months.

“My mother died of Alzheimer’s; from diagnosis to death it was five months. Her body weight was completely cut in half and she had no idea who I was at the end.

“She didn’t know who I was. In fact, she forgot the ability to eat, so her body weight was cut in half.

“I mean, it was a terrible death for her. Honestly, if I wanted to do that personally, if I were in that condition, I would really want that option,” he said at the Newshub euthanasia debate tonight.

Key said he couldn’t have made that decision for his mother, but he wanted to have the option to make it for himself.

“If I could do it myself, I would. Because in the end, I don’t know if I want my family to really look at me like that.”

Key has previously spoken of his mother as the person who had the biggest impact on him.

Born Ruth Lazar in Vienna, Austria, in 1922, and raised as a non-Orthodox Jew, she fled the Holocaust in 1938 when Hitler annexed the country.

She married George Key in the UK and moved to New Zealand, but then had to raise three children alone, including John, when he died of a heart attack. He raised Key and his siblings in a state home in Burnside, Christchurch.

During tonight’s discussion, Key acknowledged that palliative care could offer someone who was dying the opportunity to reconcile and heal during their final days.

“I’ve seen a situation where you desperately want to stay alive to say goodbye to your family and friends, but there is also a situation where you approach the end, where you can keep the lasting memories of your parents. One of them in a been terrible, “he replied.

“I’m not sure if that’s the memory I want to leave my children.”

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark has also publicly announced that she will vote in favor in the upcoming referendum, urging New Zealanders to do the same and not “fear or misinformation stand in the way of compassion.”

Clark publicly announced his position for the first time last month.

“I encourage New Zealand voters when they go to the polls on October 17 and believe in compassion and dignity, to vote yes in the referendum on the End of Life Election Act 2019,” he said in a statement on September 25.

During his time in Parliament, he had voted in favor of similar bills, but they never became law.

In his statement, Clark said that he believes the End-of-Life Choice Act was a compassionate way of giving people who suffer from very difficult ways to alleviate the right to say goodbye at a time of their choosing.

“I have spent many years traveling the world as part of my job, meeting people of all beliefs and ideals.

“One thing that stands out to me is how many respect the way we do things in New Zealand – our democracy, our sense of fair play and our compassion.”

Clark said this issue has been very divisive and that his opponents should not prevent others from having the option to do so.

“That’s not fair,” he said.

“I urge you to speak to your family members and other networks to assure them that this act is compassionate and humane and has strong safeguards.”

Clark said Parliament has ensured that there are enough stringent safeguards in this law – a law that, if passed, would only be available to a small proportion of New Zealanders who meet all the rigorous criteria set out in the law.

“There are more safeguards in this law than in any other comparable piece of legislation enacted in other parts of the world,” he said.

“You cannot access this law if you have a mental illness. You cannot access this law if you only have a disability.”

Clark’s statement came after his former finance minister, Sir Michael Cullen, publicly supported the legalization of assisted death in certain circumstances.

You are in the final stages of terminal lung cancer and have said you want to decide when the time is right.

“This is not what some too lightly dismiss as ‘being a burden.’ I don’t want my only option to be dying in a near comatose state on morphine, which has been administered knowing it will shorten my life anyway. Cullen told the Herald.

“I don’t want to lose control of my bodily functions so that my dignity has disappeared with the ebb of my life.

“When I get to those last stages, if that’s the perspective, I want the choice to be able to decide when is the right time to complete the circle of life.”

Cullen, 75, was unexpectedly told in March that he had stage four small cell lung cancer as doctors searched for what they thought might be a heart problem. He had no symptoms or signs of the disease.

Cancer is inoperable and incurable.

While there is “excellent” palliative care in New Zealand, Cullen said he still worries about how he will die, but if the End of Life Choice Act passes, it would offer dignity to people like him with incurable lung cancer.

He said the bill provides protection against pressure exerted by others on the dying person and its scope is limited.

The legislation would give New Zealanders the option to legally request help to end their lives, either by a doctor or nurse practitioner administering the drug (euthanasia) or by the patient taking it (assisted death).

To be eligible, patients must be:

• 18 years or older,

• New Zealand citizen or permanent resident,

• you have a terminal illness that is likely to end your life within six months,

• in “an advanced state of irreversible impairment of physical ability”,

• experiencing excruciating suffering “that cannot be alleviated in a way that they deem tolerable”,

• be competent to make an informed decision about death,

• be approved by two doctors, each with at least five years of experience. One can be your GP and the other should be independent.