Euthanasia law would 'force doctors to lie'

A doctor who cares for dying people says the introduction of a law legalising euthanasia would force doctors to lie.

A Bill decriminalising the practice has been put in the member's ballot by Labour MP Maryan Street.

Capital and Coast palliative medicine consultant Dr Sinead Donnelly says if it was passed, it would be a disaster for society.

She says under the Bill, doctors would have to say the person's underlying illness was the cause of death, not the lethal injection.

"And in this legislation they want the doctor to lie, to tell a lie, in addition to killing the patient, or to giving the patient, the person, the injection that killed them."

Dr Donnelly says the legislation is incredibly poor and is shocked by it.

Eleven older members of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society are interviewed in a study being published in this month's New Zealand Medical Journal.

Dr Donnelly says they're members because they don't want to be a burden and an inconvenience to society when they get older.

"Rather than get distressed about the idea of euthanasia, it's more distressing that people in our society in New Zealand would have that view of what it's like to be older."

She says care of people facing death should be improved, rather than legalising euthanasia.

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