The consequences of euthanasia legislation for disabled people

Abstract

‘Individual actions, which may ostensibly be seen as for humane purposes, can have inimical consequences for a whole category of people.’ This is one of the concluding comments in the affidavit from Not Dead Yet Aotearoa (NDYA) in the Lecretia Seales court case (Wicks and Hunt, 2015), and it is the starting point here. The community of disabled people and their interests is the focus of this article, which elaborates on some of the probable consequences of changing the law to legitimise euthanasia or assisted suicide.