Patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 can die by euthanasia if doctors decide they might not survive, the New Zealand government has declared.

新西兰政府宣布，如果医生认为他们可能无法生存，因 COVID-19

 入院的患者可能会死于安乐死。

卫生部证实，根据新的安乐死法，注射死刑的权利可以扩展到死于

冠状病毒或因冠状病毒的后果而无法忍受的患者。

为了回应对上个月生效的安乐死法的澄清要求，政府宣布“在某些

情况下，患有 COVID-19 的人可能有资格获得协助死亡”。

在反安乐死捍卫者网站的编辑 Henoch Kloosterboer 根据《官方信息

法》（新西兰相当于 2000 年《信息自由法》）提出要求之后，承

认 COVID 患者有资格接受致命刺戳。

他说，该政策为老年人和弱势患者的“虐待敞开大门”——特别是如果

该国的卫生服务受到 COVID 激增的压力。

他说：“不难想象，在这种情况下，COVID-19 住院人数迅速而可观

地增加可能会导致利用安乐死和协助自杀作为解决如此严重危机的

工具的压力。”

他补充说，安乐死法“现在使 COVID-19 大流行对新西兰 Aotearoa 

的人民更加危险”。

2019 年《生命终结选择法》被认为是世界上最极端的安乐死法律

之一，批评人士称这些保障措施非常脆弱，很容易被规避。

它允许对患有将在六个月内痊愈的疾病，或处于不可逆转的身体

衰退的晚期状态或遭受无法忍受的痛苦的成年人实施安乐死和辅助

自杀。

该法律在 2020 年全民公投后获得批准，保证所有居民都有权获得

医生的帮助，医生会在收到请求后短短四天内杀死他们。

医生每执行一次安乐死死亡，都会收到 1,000 新元的政府费用以及

费用。

然而，该国 16,000 名医生中只有 96 人表示愿意参与，而全国 32

 家临终关怀医院中只有一家表示他们不会允许安乐死。

一个例外——奥克兰南部的托塔拉临终关怀中心——已同意在其场所

分配空间用于实践，而其工作人员将认真反对任何参与。

在英国，姑息医学教授兰达夫的芬莱男爵夫人说，新西兰的安乐死

法违背了医学和卫生服务治愈病人的基本目的。

她说：“奇怪的是，一个国家一直试图通过完全关闭人们可以完全

康复的病毒来保护其公民……现在却建议这些患者应该被他们的

医生杀死。

“它颠覆了医学的精神，”她说。

“你真的无法 100% 预测死亡，”她补充道。“那么为什么不在他们

垂死的时候支持他们，并让门敞开着，以防他们在克服一切困难

并完全康复的群体中呢？”

目前，Meacher 男爵夫人正在寻求通过她的《协助死亡法案》将

英格兰和威尔士的协助自杀合法化，该法案于 10 月在上议院获得

二读。

担任竞选小组 Dignity in Dying 的跨台同行也提出了一项对《健康

和社会护理法案》的修正案，试图将协助自杀作为姑息治疗的

一部分。

在苏格兰，自由民主党议员利亚姆·麦克阿瑟 (Liam MacArthur) 打算

提出一项协助自杀法案，泽西岛的政界人士上个月原则上同意将

协助自杀和安乐死合法化。

然而，英国绝大多数姑息治疗从业者和所有 12 个残疾人权利组织

都强烈反对修改法律。

他们认为，无论采取何种保护措施，协助自杀和安乐死都具有歧

视性和危险性，并且容易被滥用，对患者和其他弱势群体的安全

构成严重威胁。

他们还表示，其他国家的经验表明，即使是适度的协助自杀法也

将作为更广泛、自由化的修正案的滩头阵地，这些修正案将消除

最初作为“获取障碍”的保障措施。

上个月，据透露，90 岁的加拿大妇女南希·拉塞尔（Nancy Russell）

选择通过协助自杀而死，而不是在她的疗养院忍受另一次 COVID 

封锁，这将使她与朋友和家人隔离。

The Ministry of Health confirmed that a right to a lethal injection under a new euthanasia law could extend to patients who were either dying from the coronavirus or suffering unbearably from its consequences.

In response to a request for clarity on a euthanasia law which came into force last month, the government declared that “in some circumstances a person with COVID-19 may be eligible for assisted dying”.

The admission that COVID patients were eligible for a lethal jab came after Henoch Kloosterboer, editor of the anti-euthanasia The Defender website, made a request under the Official Information Act – the New Zealand equivalent to the 2000 Freedom of Information Act.

He said the policy left “the door wide open for abuse” of elderly and vulnerable patients – especially if the country’s health service came under pressure from a COVID surge.

He said: “It would not be hard to envisage a situation in which a speedy and sizeable rise in COVID-19 hospitalisations could result in pressure to utilise euthanasia and assisted suicide as tools to resolve such a serious crisis.”

The euthanasia law, he added, “has now made the COVID-19 pandemic potentially even more dangerous for the people of Aotearoa New Zealand”.

The 2019 End of Life Choice Act is considered to be one of the most extreme euthanasia laws anywhere in the world, and critics say the safeguards are so flimsy that they are easily circumvented.

It permits both euthanasia and assisted suicide for adults suffering from an illness which would be terminal within six months, or who were in an advanced state of irreversible physical decline or who were suffering unbearably.

The law, ratified following a referendum in 2020, guarantees all residents the right of access to a doctor who will kill them within a period as short as four days from receiving a request.

Doctors receive a government fee of $1,000 plus expenses for every euthanasia death they perform.

Just 96 of the country’s 16,000 doctors have offered to participate, however, and all but one of the nation’s 32 hospices have indicated that they will not permit euthanasia.

The one exception – Totara Hospice in South Auckland – has agreed to allocate space on its premises for the practice while its staff will conscientiously object to any participation.

In the UK, Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, a professor of palliative medicine, said the New Zealand euthanasia law contradicted the fundamental purpose of medicine and health services to heal the sick.

She said: “It is bizarre that a country which has been trying to protect it citizens by closing down completely from a virus from which people can fully recover … is now suggesting that these patients should be killed by their doctors.

“It turns the ethos of medicine on its head,” she said.

“You really cannot predict death 100 per cent,” she added. “So why not support them while they are dying and leave the door open in case they are in the group that defies all odds and recovers completely?”

At present, Baroness Meacher is seeking to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales through her Assisted Dying Bill, which in October received its Second Reading in the House of Lords.

The crossbench peer, who chairs the campaign group Dignity in Dying, has also tabled an amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill in an attempt to make assisted suicide a part of palliative care.

In Scotland, Liam MacArthur, the Liberal Democrat MP is intending to introduce an assisted suicide Bill and in politicians in Jersey last month agreed in principle to legalised both assisted suicide and euthanasia.

The overwhelming majority of palliative care practitioners and all 12 disability rights organisations in the UK fiercely oppose a change in the law, however.

They argue that assisted suicide and euthanasia would be discriminatory and dangerous and open to abuse irrespective of any safeguard, posing a grave threat to the safety of patients and other vulnerable people.

They also say that the experience of other countries suggests that even a modest assisted suicide law would serve as a beachhead for broader, liberalising amendments which will remove initial safeguards as ‘barriers to access’.

Last month, it was revealed that Nancy Russell, a 90-year-old Canadian woman, chose to die by assisted suicide rather than endure another COVID lockdown in her care home that would isolate her from her friends and family.

https://catholicherald.co.uk/new-zealand-okays-euthanasia-for-covid-patients/

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