Category Archives: euthanasia

New Year’s Guide to Democracy

Pop quiz for those of you who live in, or are interested in, parliamentary democracies, like the United Kingdom, New Zealand and other such wonderful places: What’s the difference between Cabinet and Caucus? What’s the difference between Government and Parliament and the House of Representatives? Can you describe in a paragraph how a law gets […]

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Matters of Life and Death: Euthanasia

‘It is a tragedy when the human spirit dies before the body. But the answer is not to kill the body too, but to revive the spirit.’  So said Prof Margaret Somerville at a conference on euthanasia held in Wellington a couple of years ago. On Sunday I tried to canvass the arguments on both sides of […]

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Matters of Life and Death: Being Human

  What should a doctor do when a terminally ill patient asks her to ‘end it all’ with morphine? What are the implications of expectant parents having Down’s Syndrome screening for their unborn babies? How do we cope and make sense of the world when our ageing parents no longer recognise us? I’m filling in […]

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