It is disappointing that three of our prominent Parliamentarians should support the contentious and life threatening End of Life Choice bill [EOLCB] of David Seymour.
The Members are, the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, the Minister of Justice, Andrew Little and the Deputy Leader of the National Party, the Hon Paula Bennett.
The three have publicly stated that they support ‘choice’. The choice they are alluding to is the ‘right’ of a patient to have their doctor kill them with a lethal injection or assist them in committing suicide; self-murder.
These leaders and indeed all Members of Parliament should recognise that their duty is to legislate to protect the lives of every member of the community from conception until natural death and not to preside over our destruction. The Members proclaim the right to ‘choose’ yet are prepared to ignore the 38,707 written submissions with 90.02 per cent opposed to euthanasia and the bill. Why are they ‘choosing’ to impose their will on the community?
The ‘choice’ proposed in this EOLCB is a ravenous wolf in sheeps clothing. The bill undermines the rights of patients and doctors.
The European Court of Human Rights found in 2017 that there is no right to suicide or to assisted suicide under the convention and no positive obligation to provide such. The legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide does not provide individual rights but it gives doctors, or others, the right in law to cause your death.
The bill would threaten the human rights of those who did not choose to be killed. In Holland in 2015 there were 431 patients who were deprived of their life by their doctor without their knowledge or consent. A doctor in Belgium who gives patients a lethal injection, claims that 1,000 patients every year are killed by their doctor without the knowledge or consent of the patient.
The bill undermines the right of doctors to choose to follow their conscience. A doctor who refuses a request from his patient for a lethal injection is required to refer the patient to a doctor who is prepared to kill him.
David Seymour, the ‘high priest of euthanasia’, claims that his bill is all about ‘choice’. This is the same person who seeks to deny his fellow MPs the right to choose to follow their conscience in voting on this bill by seeking to have a binding referendum on the bill to bind their vote to the majority.
Parliament should recognise that David Seymour is seeking to seduce the community to accept homicide and suicide under the smokescreen of choice. Right to Life requests Parliament to defeat this contentious bill at its second reading on 1 May 2019.
Ken Orr
Spokesperson,
Right to Life
I’d make that five. Winston Peters and New Zealand First ar e voting en bloc for this bill, facilitating its passage, as long as there is a binding referendum at the end of this process. He is equally culpable. As is Simon Bridges, who is doing nothing to impede or challenge National’s own sizeable pro-euthanasia contingent.