Many thanks to the 400 people who attended this public meeting, we appreciate your time and input into the discussion on this important issue.
We also warmly thank our speakers who shared their views, thoughts and experiences with us. Thanks also to Sean Plunket who, as MC provided further thoughts for discussion and the ongoing conversation.
Please click here to listen to the full audio recording of the meeting - please note this is two hours in length, and will open in a new window and depending on your connection, may take a moment to load.
The speakers:
Baroness Finlay is a doctor, professor of palliative medicine, and an Independent Crossbench member of the House of Lords.
She is a past president of the Royal Society of Medicine. She is a professor of palliative medicine at Cardiff University School of Medicine, and is consultant at the Velindre cancer centre in Cardiff. In 2001, she was made a life peer as Baroness Finlay of Llandaff.
Baroness Finlay chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Dying Well (www.dyingwell.org.uk). This group of MP's and Peers was established to promote palliative care and oppose legalised euthanasia
Nelson-based Labour list MP Maryan Street plans to introduce an "end of life choice" private member's bill to Parliament.
The bill would make it legal for those diagnosed as terminally ill, and fully in control of their mental faculties, to choose to die, and for assisting clinicians or family members to be protected from liability.
It would also include the principle of advanced directive, so a person could make their wishes known before the advance of a terminal illness.
MBChB (equivalent to U.S. MD); MSc(Psychology); D.Phil (Oxon); FRACS (equivalent to U.S. Board Certification in Neurosurgery); FRS NZ.
Grant Gillett is a qualified neurosurgeon and practiced until 2006. He is now a Professor of Medical Ethics at the Bioethics Centre of the Medical School, and a fellow of the Royal society. He is author of The Mind and its Discontents (2009), Subjectivity and Being Somebody: human identity and neuroethics. (2008), Bioethics in the clinic: Hippocratic reflections (2004) and over 250 articles in philosophy, bioethics, the philosophy of psychiatry and neuroscience
Leading international scholar in medical law and ethics Associate Professor Colin Gavaghan is the first New Zealand Law Foundation–sponsored Director in Emerging Technologies at the University of Otago Faculty of Law.
Dr Gavaghan, who until now has held the position of Lecturer in Medical Law and Ethics at the University of Glasgow's School of Law, heads the newly-established Centre for Law and Policy in Emerging Technologies, the only New Zealand-based research centre that will examine the legal, ethical and policy issues around new technologies. These include biotechnology, nanotechnology, alternative bio-energy, information and communication technologies, robotics and artificial intelligence.
