The nearly 50 submitters were overwhelmingly against the The End of Life Choice Bill at the hearing in Dunedin yesterday.
The committee is touring the country to hear submissions on David Seymour’s Member’s Bill which passed its first reading in December 76 to 44.
It would give those with a terminal illness or "irremediable" medical conditions the choice of assisted death.
The select committee yesterday consisted of National MPs Nick Smith and Michael Woodhouse and New Zealand First MP Mark Patterson.
Of the first 16 submitters, only one supported the legislation.
University of Otago bioethics researcher and palliative care physician Janine Winters said the present Bill was "terrible" with "terminal flaws".
"As a doctor, I would never want to participate in hastening death. It’s one of the reasons I’m able to do the work that I do in palliative medicine. It allows me to sleep at night that I allow a natural process to occur."
If the Bill was to pass, she suggested a range of necessary considerations, such as evaluating whether the person had been coerced and avoiding the "chaos" of not involving the family in decisions.
Several terms needed to be clarified to more clearly define those eligible, she said.
Dunedin man Michael Wagener spoke of being diagnosed with a degenerative disease as a child and being told he would not live past 18.
He was "instantly healed" at age 16 for reasons unknown, he said.
"If a few weeks before that I had been given the opportunity to end my life I may have taken it. I was depressed, I thought there was no hope."
However, he acknowledged that under the present Bill he would not be eligible.
Dunedin GP Susan Grindlay said the Bill would destroy the relationship between doctors and patients.
"Patients currently feel safe to say to me ‘I want to die’, because they know they can trust me to say ‘let’s treat that feeling’, rather than saying ‘OK let’s arrange that’."
In her career, people had asked her to kill their mothers, suffering from dementia, in one case because of the cost of a rest-home, she said.
Anglican Bishop of Dunedin Steven Benford said it seemed approaches to care changed in countries which legalised assisted dying.
Dr Benford, who was previously a GP, said the Bill was also "unnecessary" as there were already ways to deal with discomfort in palliative care.
Bill supporter Raleigh Wells said he felt "betrayed" such a Bill was not passed already.
It was the "next step in social evolution and progress" and countries which introduced such laws had not experienced damage to their social fabrics, he said.
"Contrary to the claim that old people will be pressured, most people are able to make the choice of how to manage the end of their life."
It would give peaceful, dignified departure to people with "no hope", he said.
The committee is expected to report on submissions in March.
