Media Release June 17 2019
Right to Life asks, will the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern give moral leadership and protect the vulnerable in our community? Is she going to stand up for the vulnerable and vote against the life threatening End of Life Choice bill [EOLCB] at its second reading?
A yes vote by our parliamentarians at the second reading for the EOLCB would be an unprecedented challenge to the authority of God.
God is the author of life and we are the stewards of the life that He has lovingly entrusted to us. Parliament has usurped the authority of God by deceiving itself that it has the authority to decide who shall live and who shall die. The EOLCB will empower doctors to kill or assist in the suicide of patients.
All authority comes from God and He has delegated His authority to the State to legislate for the protection of the lives of every member of our community from conception to natural death and not to preside over our destruction.
This threat to the right to life of the elderly, the disabled and the seriously ill is a threat to the lives of all and should be a cause of great concern for every person in our community.
It is important to understand the agenda of the euthanasia movement, a movement that has close association with eugenics which decrees that only the fit shall be allowed to live. The agenda is;
- That the State has authority to decide who shall live and who shall be killed.
- That doctors be empowered by the State to kill their patients or assist in their suicide.
- That doctors be required to disregard the Hippocratic Oath and the duty to do no harm. Doctors could be, as in Nazi Germany, required to pledge allegiance to the State by taking an oath, “to the health of the nation.’
- That doctors be required to disregard their conscience and become agents of the State in terminating the lives of their patients.
- To normalise suicide as rational and to require acceptance of its citizens that there is a duty to die when one becomes a burden on the State or on the family.
In a 2008 interview, Baroness Mary Warnock, a leading British moral philosopher, said that people suffering from dementia had a duty to commit suicide: “If you’re demented, you’re wasting people’s lives, your family’s lives and you’re wasting the resources of the National Health Services.”
In 2016 there were 62,827 patients in New Zealand with Alzheimers, costing $1.7 billion in care. By 2050 it is expected that there will be 170,000 patients needing care, costing an estimated $5 billion. These are among our most vulnerable citizens. All of whom would be potential victims of euthanasia.
We should learn from Nazi Germany and the T4 euthanasia programme that started in 1938 which resulted in the killing of an estimated 300,000 disabled and sick German children and adults. It culminated in the Holocaust and the murder of six million Jews. Will we learn from history and not make the same mistake?
It is imperative that Parliament uphold its duty to defend life by defeating the contentious EOLCB at its second reading.
Ken Orr,
Spokesperson,
Right to Life
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