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Euthanasia Bill fails first reading Add this story to Scoopit!.

Peter Brown’s Death with Dignity or Euthanasia Bill failed to even make it to select committee after failing its first reading by 57 votes to 60.

Personally I’m somewhat disappointed as I beleive a select committee debate and submission process would have been worth-while. Personally I am not sure how I would eventually vote on the Bill if I was an MP, as my instincts are to support it, but I do have a concern coming from a medical family background about Doctors having a role of anything other than preserving life. Having said that passive euthanasia is very common and indeed sensible.

The voting breakdown on the Bill is interesting with the majority of Labour MPs actually voting against (some what surprisingly). The breakdown by Party was:

Party – For – Against – Abstain/No Vote

Labour – 25- 26 -1
National 7 – 20 – 0
NZ First 9 – 3 – 1
ACT 6 – 2 – 1
Greens 8 -1 – 0
United 1 – 7 – 0
Jim & Matt 1 – 1 – 0

Greens most in favour at 89% and United most against at 88%. The sole Green MP against was Ian Ewen-Street and sole United in favour Marc Alexander.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2003 at 10:42 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “Euthanasia Bill fails first reading”

  1. Brian Says:
    August 1st, 2003 at 4:14 pm

    David, you were surprised at the majority of Labour MPs voting against. I am baffled by the comparative unanimity among National MPs … are they all falling in behind the dear leader, or are they generally more morally conservative than the rest of the country seems to be?

    Keep up the good work.

  2. David Farrar Says:
    August 2nd, 2003 at 11:47 am

    On these sort of issues the current National Caucus is relatively morally conserative so I wasn’t very surprised by the voting figures from National MPs. The views of the Leader (any National Leader) on conscience issues are persuasive at best rather than influential. Less so in Labour on the Prostitution Law Reform as Mr Choudray and Mrs Laban could testify).

    My surprise was that Labour MP normally are liberal on this sort of issue, and it was unusual that the Bill almost passed its first reading despite both Labour and National caucuses having a majority against it.

    I should also note that Heather Roy did in fact vote in favour of the Bill. She continues to be one of my favourite ACT MPs.

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