Media Release July 16th 2017
Right to Life believes David Seymour is being irresponsible by cajoling MP’s who refuse to support his dangerous End of Life Choice bill. Following the results of a TV1 Colmar Brunton poll, Seymour was quoted as saying “that this poll is a wakeup call; “Too many MPs have ignored public opinion and in a democracy you do that at your peril.”
This Colmar Brunton poll asked respondents whether they thought a terminally ill person should be able to receive assistance from a doctor to end their life, The poll results indicated that 74 per cent said “yes” and 18 per cent said “no”.
In making the statements Seymour conveniently left out the fact that his bill provides for both euthanasia and doctor assisted suicide and that it applies to a range of persons not actually dying. In fact it includes provision for any persons from 18 years of age suffering from an irreversible physical or mental condition that in their view rendered their life unbearable.
In making the above statement Seymour also conveniently forgets that the only authentic expression of public opinion on euthanasia, is that expressed by the 21,277 members of the community who were motivated to make written submissions to the Parliamentary Health Select Committee on the wider issue. A careful analysis of all the submissions revealed that 16,411 or 77 per cent of the submissions were opposed to euthanasia. Observers report that the vast majority of the more than 1,200 oral submissions were also opposed to euthanasia. Not a mention of this from Seymour, simply cherry picking to suit his agenda.
Right to Life believes the wording of any poll may elicit a response dependent on that wording. Right to Life contends that the question asked in the latest Colmar Brunton poll, is far too simplistic and does not in any way address the potential harm that any such move to decriminalise euthanasia poses to society.
David Seymour knows that the expected report of the Health Committee will reflect the overwhelming opposition to changing the law to allow doctors to kill their patients or assist in their suicide. Again we ask, why is David Seymour strangely silent about this important report? Is he intending to ignore the report and public opinion and continue to foist this bill on this nation? Will David Seymour abide by the democratic process once the findings of the Parliamentary Select Committee are made public? Will he accept the will of the people by withholding support for his bill at the first reading should the Committee reject decriminalisation, or will he continue to push his barrow that doctors should be able to kill their patients, which will endanger the most vulnerable members of our community?
MPs have an inalienable responsibility to their Creator, themselves and the community to courageously promote a culture of life and oppose a culture of death by following fearlessly a well formed conscience. Euthanasia is intrinsically evil and cannot be supported regardless of a badly misinformed public opinion.
Right to Life believes that this poll is a further example of the manipulation of public opinion by promoting the murder of the vulnerable under the guise of compassion. The question in the poll uses seductive lies designed to make murder acceptable. If TV 1 are going to engage a poll in which the question leads to a passive acceptance of euthanasia, we challenge them to conduct a poll where the following question is asked? Do you think that a person who is clinically depressed, has dementia, Alzheimer’s, or another disability should have the right to have a doctor kill him by administering a lethal injection, or assisting him to commit self-murder, i.e. suicide?
We make no apology for asking TV1 and the rest of the New Zealand media, who supposedly are at the service of the community, when they are going to stop promoting euthanasia and give the public the real facts about doctor assisted suicide and homicide. The results of what happens when a jurisdiction decriminalizes euthanasia and allows doctors to assist in the suicide of their patients is now startlingly clear.
Many examples of abus are now coming in world wide. For example, every five years the Dutch government does a study into how the euthanasia law is working. The latest study found that: “strict protective guidelines” supposed to protect these helpless patients from being killed against their will are being flouted, leading to the deaths of 431 people in 2015, none of whom gave clear consent. The Dutch government intends to introduce legislation to extend euthanasia with the “Completed Life Bill” which would allow anybody age 75 or older to be euthanized even if they are healthy. If the legislation is approved, it would mean that doctor-assisted suicide would be available to any adult who wants it. The Royal Dutch Medical Association recently announced that every Dutch citizen over the age of 70 years was now eligible for euthanasia. Euthanasia is a monster with an insatiable appetite. We release this monster into our community at our peril.
Ken Orr
Spokesperson,
Right to Life.
Dear mr Ken Orr,
I accept and respect everyone’s opinion pro or con medically aid in dying (these term includes both doctors injecting the deadly medication (euthanasia) and doctors prescribing deadly medication ( assisted suicide) – and both on the explicit request of the individual concerned), but also expect both sides to quote correctly and objectively from ‘opposing’ reports and not make them suggestive. Examples enough in the last paragraph of this article:
1. in the Netherlands at least every 5 year surveys (with high response rates) demonstrate transparently what is actually happening; contrary to other jurisdictions where no scientific numbers are known as to what ‘doctors do’ in situations of extreme terminal suffering
2. more than 85% of the quoted 431 people were in a stage where palliative sedation was given as the appropriate treatment, and only because of definition issues in the research format categorised as euthanasia
3. the bill presented by the current minister of Health Edith Schippers (and not the Dutch government) does not allow ‘all healthy Dutch adults over 75 who want it to be euthanized’ (they have to comply with a rather strict list of criteria) and it is not for doctors but specially trained counsellors to assist in a suicide
4. the RDMA never will do and never has done an announcement as quoted as far as I know..
So, no problem for you to be objecting against a law in NZ, but please use correct quotations in the correct context in your argumentations.
Dear Dr Jonquiere,
The facts are that the recent study indicated that there were 431 assisted deaths without explicit request. By definition, it means that the person did not ask for their death to be hastened but it was done anyway. Whether or not the person was receiving palliative care or nearing death shouldn’t matter.
We believe the points you make in (3) will be compromised by the fact that studies show that more than 60% of geriatiric care speicailists already say that they have felt pressure from patients familiy members to euthanize elderly relatives.
You claim that your new bill will have safeguards. However we must point out that so does your current law and we know they are being ignored.
You mention that the “completed life” deaths will be done by “counsellors” and not doctors. So here we see the ‘administrators’ of euthansia moving away from physicians to ‘counsellors’. We see this as extremely dangerous. We also know from the DutchNews.NL that Dutch physicians (KNMG) are not in favour of euthanasia for “completed life”.
The KNMG have also said that expanding the euthanasia laws for reasons of “a completed life” would undermine the current euthanasia laws. “However separate legislation for people with ‘no medical grounds’ for the wish to dies could have an undesireable social effect, by stigmatizing the elderly”. They said that the government should invest in measures to make sure that the elderly do not feel their lives are pointless
It is however encouraging to know that you are doing the necessary research to identify what is actually happening in the Netherlands.
Thank you for commenting on our release.
Chris O’Brien
President Right to Life NZ
Leaving one with the urgent question- why has the National Party leader, Bill English, said that he would like National Party voters to vote *for* David Seymour in Epsom despite his close involvement with this attack on vulnerable elderly, disabled and impoverished people through legalised assisted suicide? As if we needed more evidence about the danger to disabilities, that wonderful man Bob McCoskrie has just drawn my attention to this truly disgusting recent incident in Canada involving a young woman with spina bifida, cerebral palsy and chronic medical conditions. I’ve just emailed it to disability rights movement friends as well, but this makes stomach-turning reading.
There should be an organised campaign to unseat Seymour in Epsom this year:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/doctor-suggested-assisted-suicide-daughter-mother-elson-1.4218669
Yes We agree. Seymour poses a serious threat to all vulnearble and disabled people in NZ. Right to Life is doing all it can to make the public aware of how any move to decriminalize Euthanasia is very dangerous.
Here’s a look at what might happen if we let Seymour’s bill in through allowing him to return to Parliament- it is the Patients Right Council, an excellent US prolife group focused on opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide. I urge Epsom pro-life and social conservative voters *not* to let this radical libertarian extremist back into Parliament. And thank you to my American friend Rita for letting me know about this excellent website:
http://www.patientsrightscouncil.org/site/holland/
Well done Rhona. Thanks for this very useful link.
Seymour is feeling embattled!:
““Neither National nor Labour can be trusted with the End of Life Choice Bill,” Mr Seymour says. “Labour withdrew a private member’s bill on the topic because it was deemed politically risky. National has turned inaction into a brand over the past decade, and will kick this issue to touch forever if they can get away with it. Both major parties lack the spine to tie themselves to the cause, leaving me to sponsor the bill set for debate after the election.”
[…] ““National MP Simon O’Connor’s professed neutrality as chair of the select committee inquiry was completely undermined when he used a Catholic newspaper to encourage negative submissions. Yet Labour and the Greens failed to challenge him. O’Connor’s bias was made even more explicit in yesterday’s Herald column, in which he used his select committee position to lend credence to his personal objections to end-of-life choice.”
And note his interesting conclusion:
“It’s now clear that New Zealand will not see reform without a strong ACT after the election. With more MPs, ACT will ensure the passage of the End of Life Choice Bill, giving suffering New Zealanders dignity and choice.”
Hmmm. Does this mean that if we vote against ACT and insure Seymour isn’t returned to Parliament, we’ll be rid of this ghastly anti-life legislation?