NEW ZEALAND – More people may have access to assisted dying soon
05 November 2025
Guest article by Ann David*
From New Zealand where an assisted dying law came into force in November 2021, comes the good news that an End of Life Choice Amendment Bill has been lodged in Parliament’s ballot as reported here. The advocacy organisation “End-of-Life Choice Society” (“the Society”) congratulates the bill’s sponsor, MP Todd Stephenson, for his compassionate initiative. It has been working closely with him for some time.
The legislation
The most important proposal in the Amendment bill is to replace the words “terminal and likely to die within six months” with the words of the successful Australian Capital Territory’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Act: “diagnosed with a condition that, either on its own or with one or more other diagnosed conditions, is advanced, progressive and expected to cause death”. All other eligibility criteria will remain the same.
If successfully passed, this would allow access to assisted dying for people with degenerative diseases, end-stage heart or lung disease and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. It may also allow access to assisted dying for some people with dementia, as in Canada.
A further amendment urged by the Society is the proposal to introduce a “waiver of final consent”. This would be of short duration, to cover the period between full eligibility being established and the date of accepting the life-ending medication. It would enable the person to continue taking pain relief and symptom control medications during that interim period, safe in the knowledge that, should medication cause them to lose competence, they will nevertheless be able to proceed to their assisted death.
Finally, the Amendment bill has also absorbed all 25 recommendations made by the Ministry of Health at its statutory review in November 2024. The most important of these is the proposal to drop the blanket “gag” on doctors’ raising the topic of assisted dying. If successfully passed, this proposed amendment would allow doctors to raise the topic with people in their care as part of end-of-life care conversations. This will go some way towards making access to assisted dying more equitable, particularly for the elderly, the socio-economically disadvantaged and those with low health literacy.
Assisted dying providers also welcome the proposal to remove the requirement for a person to set a specific date for delivery of the life-ending medication, this date to be provided in advance to the Registrar. Instead, the person would be free to arrange a date with their provider at any time within six months after full eligibility is established. The benefit of this is to avoid the delay caused by burdensome administrative procedures when a person wishes to bring their date forward urgently.
The Society is pleased that the Ministry of Health supported our desire to see Nurse Practitioners (NPs) enabled to participate as assisted dying providers also. The Ministry recommended that NPs be able to take up the full role of the first assessing practitioner, with a doctor to take up the role of the second assessing practitioner. This will gratify NPs who want to be involved in assisted dying practice and will recognise their superior level of academic achievement and supervised specialist experience over and above that of registered nurses. Moreover, it will increase the available practitioner workforce and help prevent the “burn-out” of participating doctors.
Conscientious objection has been something of a problem in New Zealand, especially where hospices and faith-based residential aged care facilities are concerned. Some horror stories have come to light. Accordingly, the Amendment bill picks up on several of the Ministry of Health’s recommendations to make conscientious objection more difficult, especially when this amounts to deliberate obstruction. Currently, only one of the 32 hospices in New Zealand, Tōtara Hospice in South Auckland, welcomes assisted dying onsite. We thank Tōtara’s chief executive Tina McAfferty and her medical director Dr James Jap for their willingness to put patient choice first.
No changes to any of the safeguards are proposed.
The Society acknowledges the highly-valued support of our pro-bono legal team from Russell McVeagh and of our own pro-bono legal adviser, Catherine Marks.
The campaign
But a Member’s bill is not the same as a Government bill: different rules apply. While a Government bill is automatically given a place on the Order Paper for discussion, a Member’s bill can only be discussed when it is:
- drawn from a ballot of competing Member’s bills by a stroke of good luck, or
- supported by 61 non-executive MPs in order to bypass the ballot system.
Getting the support of those 61 non-executive MPs (i.e. backbenchers) is now the ongoing work of the End-of-Life Choice Society. It will be a difficult task in a field of only 92 backbenchers many of whom are recent arrivals to Parliament, discovering the legislative constraints surrounding assisted dying for the first time.
It is probably unnecessary to say that the usual gaggle of disinformers and misinformers have already taken to the media to sound the alarm about the “slippery slope”.
Safe, compassionate and reassuring
In almost four years of assisted dying practice in New Zealand, assisted deaths are slowly becoming accepted as an end-of-life choice. The Ministry of Health publishes regular, data-based reports on 30 June each year.
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The option of travelling to Dignitas from New Zealand
The End-of-Life Choice Society is sometimes contacted by people who are unfortunately ineligible for assisted dying in New Zealand and are desperate for alternatives. Of course, we explain palliative care and sedation as well as VSED (voluntary stopping of eating and drinking) but, understandably, some find that not acceptable.
We also explain the Swiss alternatives including the non-profit “Dignitas – To live with dignity – To die with dignity”. There are several deterrents to this for most: the burden of travel from southern to northern hemisphere, the difficulty of getting their medical records released without raising suspicion, the cost involved even when Dignitas grants reduction and exemption, and the fear of loved ones being prosecuted on their return to New Zealand for “assisting a suicide”. Although we do not know of any cases where people have been questioned by police or even prosecuted in this country, we feel an obligation to warn that it could happen.
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*Ann David is past President of the End-of-life Choice (EOLC) Society of New Zealand and member of the EOLC committee. She is a long-time campaigner for the right to die with dignity.
