NewsHub 10 August 2020
Family First Comment: Thank you Vicki for your powerful and brave voice!
“Vicki Walsh was told in June 2011 her brain cancer diagnosis was terminal and she only had 12 to 14 months to live. However, now aged 53, Walsh has had NINE more years of life since. She says that might not have happened if the choice of assisted dying had been available because she would’ve taken it.”
#protect
#rejectassistedsuicide
A woman with terminal cancer she wouldn’t consider assisted dying and will vote against legalising euthanasia in the referendum.
Vicki Walsh was told in June 2011 her brain cancer diagnosis was terminal and she only had 12 to 14 months to live.
However, now aged 53, Walsh has had nine more years of life since. She says that might not have happened if the choice of assisted dying had been available because she would’ve taken it.
“Obviously euthanasia wasn’t an option, but I had a go at killing myself. So had euthanasia been an option then, it is probably one I would have taken, not realising I was actually depressed,” she told Newshub.
Up until then, she had always believed people should have the choice of assisted dying, saying it was, “My body, my choice”. But after her suicide attempt, her views changed.
“Do you know what, I woke up the next day and I had the best day. I kept thinking, ‘What if you’d done it?'”
Walsh now believes in what she calls a journey to completion, no matter how painful the end.
“Why would I take away the fun parts? And people say to me, ‘What happens if there aren’t any fun parts?’ I say I don’t know. But I am prepared to see that journey through because I don’t believe in anybody deliberately ending someone else’s life.”
She’s now against giving people the choice for assisted dying because there is so much room to get it wrong.
READ MORE: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/08/euthanasia-referendum-terminal-cancer-patient-reveals-why-she-s-against-legalising-assisted-dying.html
