Lecretia's Choice: A Story of Love, Death and the Law

Author(s): Matt Vickers

NZ Biographies

I want to make things easier for people coming after me,' Lecretia told the interviewer. 'I want to make a difference to the law. And it's quite exciting that I'm in a position where I might be able to do that.' 
She had just learned that chemotherapy was no longer an option.


A successful young lawyer in Wellington, Lecretia Seales met and fell in love with Matt Vickers in 2003. In Lecretia's Choice, Matt tells the story of their life together, and how it changed when his proud, fiercely independent wife was diagnosed with a brain tumour and forced to confront her own mortality.


The death she faced-slow, painful, dependent-was completely at odds with how she had lived her life. Lecretia wanted to die with dignity, to be able to say goodbye well, and not to suffer unnecessarily-but the law denied her that choice. With her characteristic spirit, she decided to mount a challenge in New Zealand's High Court, but as the battle raged, Lecretia's strength faded. She died on 5 June 2015, at the age of forty-two, the day after her family learned that the court had ruled against her.


Lecretia's Choice is not only a moving love story but compulsory reading for everyone who cares about the dignity we afford terminally ill people who want to die on their own terms.


Product Information

'A beautifully written story of courage, determination and a legal race against time.' --Professor Gillian Triggs, Australian Human Rights Commission

'A poignant love story and a fiercely rational call for change.' --Emily Perkins

In 2015 Matt Vickers supported his wife, Lecretia Seales, in her campaign to gain the right to choose how she died. Lecretia's Choice is his first book.

General Fields

  • : 9781925355598
  • : Text Publishing Company
  • : Text Publishing Company
  • : July 2016
  • : Australia
  • : August 2016
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Matt Vickers
  • : Paperback
  • : Sep-16
  • : English
  • : 362.196994810092
  • : 320