Today, Stuff reported:
Mr Key said yesterday that he could understand the argument that legalising euthanasia might put pressure on the elderly to end their lives early, in the face of "rapacious grandkids", but "I don't really buy that argument".
"I think there's a lot of euthanasia that effectively happens in our hospitals," he told Newstalk ZB.
". . . If I had terminal cancer, I had a few weeks to live, I was in tremendous amount of pain - if they just effectively wanted to turn off the switch and legalise that by legalising euthanasia, I'd want that."
Here we have an elected official commenting on a currently illegal activity saying that it's widespread in our hospital system. Even worse he infers that because it is already happening, there doesn't need to be a law change to allow euthanasia to occur legally. The mind boggles at just how inept and wrong Keys statement is on so many levels.
The Prime Minister's claim has been categorically shot down by many health professionals and quite rightly so. It's bad enough to make up a story to try and justify his noncommittal to changing euthanasia laws, but to say that doctors are routinely breaking the law and the government knows about it while doing nothing is entirely unacceptable.
Key is either a liar in regard to hospital's allowing the law to be broken or failing to ensure the law is upheld. Either way it's another lose lose PR disaster for National's spin doctors, who are looking decidedly pathetic by trying to justify Keys stupidity.
