‘Lecretia’s Choice’ by Matt Vickers

In 2003, Matt Vickers met lawyer Lecretia Seales at a party in Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand. The first third of Vickers’s 2016 memoir ‘Lecretia’s Choice’ charts their falling in love and swiftly getting married, the progressions of their careers, and their struggles to conceive naturally as well as through several stages of IVF. In 2011, after developing persistent headaches and vision problems, Lecretia is diagnosed with a brain tumour. Surgery, radiotherapy and drugs help in the short term, but her increasing frailty and seizures make it obvious her condition is not improving. Relying on Matt’s care, Lecretia continues to work in a prominent role at the national Law Commission. Inspired by recent changes in Canadian law, Lecretia becomes interested in the right-to-die movement in New Zealand. Her position as a terminal cancer patient and high-powered lawyer leads her to develop a High Court case to assert the right to have a doctor assist her to die. Matt acts as public relations officer for Lecretia’s increasingly prominent campaign and begins a blog, also called ‘Lecretia’s Choice’. The book’s final third comprises a mixture of the everyday developments of Lecretia’s declining health and a blow-by-blow account of the High Court battle, including summaries of submissions and affidavits from both sides. Although he decides against her, the judge praises Lecretia’s advocacy and primes parliament to debate the issue. Lecretia dies on the same day as the verdict is reached and Vickers’s book ends with a description of her funeral and a call for legalisation.

Although her case was rejected, Seales’s story initiated the legalisation of assisted dying in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and a national referendum in 2020. ‘Lecretia’s Choice’ itself has not been cited outright in parliamentary debates but Seales’s case, of which Vickers’ book provides a heartfelt record, has been cited many times. Vickers furthermore used his book in his subsequent campaigning. In his memoir, he shares many personal details and emotions, including the moment of Lecretia’s (natural) death, as well as descriptions of the rationale behind the couple’s decisions regarding Lecretia’s care and advocacy. Additionally, Vickers reproduces parts of many of his and Lecretia’s diary entries, emails and text messages, as well as published articles she wrote for national newspapers. The result is an account of a high-profile case that also shares intimate day-to-day details of the couple’s relationship, all the while highlighting Lecretia’s determination to change the law. It addresses issues of helplessness and control as well as the contrast between Lecretia’s sense of privacy and her public openness as an advocate for the right to die. The book is dedicated to a list of fellow high-profile campaigners such as Ramón Sampedro and Sue Rodriguez. It also references other cultural productions on the subject such as Terry Pratchett’s lecture Shaking Hands with Death, or Lesley Martin’s book To Die Like a Dog, an earlier high-profile publication from Aotearoa/New Zealand which led to Martin’s conviction for attempted murder of her terminally ill mother.