Right to Life New Zealand

Upholding the sanctity of Human life and Standing Up for the Vulnerable

A peek behind Belgium’s euthanasia curtain

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peek behind Euthanasia in Belgium The following post is a re-post from MercatorNet website and is by chief editor Michael Cook.

Another euthanasia scandal in Belgium. Two sisters have complained on a television program, Terzake, about the euthanasia of their sister. Tine Nys was 38 at the time and had broken up with her live-in boyfriend. On Christmas Eve 2009 she announced that she was going to be euthanased.

After interviews with doctors, she was given a lethal injection on April 24, 2010, with her mother and father and her two sisters, Lotte and Sophie, at her bedside.

Belgium allows people to request euthanasia if they have unbearable psychological suffering, not just a terminal illness. Tine was obviously a troubled woman and 15 years before she had been seeing a psychiatrist regularly. But she was recovering from a love affair, not suffering unbearable mental anguish.

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Euthanasia Declaration Overwhelmingly Rejected by European Parliament

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Media Release Sunday 17th January 2016

The European Parliament has this month overwhelmingly rejected a declaration that included support for euthanasia. This rejection should be an example to our Parliament on the rejection of a culture of death in which the killing of the vulnerable in our society, the aged, the disabled and the seriously ill is promoted under the guise of compassion. The European Parliament have defiantly proclaimed support for a culture of life and have emphatically rejected the lobbying of those advocating for changing the law to allow doctors to kill their patients or assist in their suicide.

The New Zealand Parliament should follow the outstanding example set by the European Parliament and reject euthanasia and a culture of death. The sanctity of life, is an indivisible and universal value. It must be protected at all stages of life. [Read more…]

When Suicide Becomes a Life Choice Paid for by the State

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California Becomes 5th State to Legalize Assisted SuicideRight to Life Media Release 20th December 2016

The Dutch Right to Die Society (NVVE), is now lobbying to have the law changed to allow persons reaching the age of 70 years of age who believe that their life is complete and who are tired of living to be given a lethal pill with which to kill themselves. The Society claims that this is already happening and the law needs to be changed to prevent abuse.

Right to Life challenges the Voluntary Euthanasia Society New Zealand to admit that they support giving a suicide pill to all 70 year olds in New Zealand who are tired of living.

It is always morally wrong to take life. This proposal is an attack on the sanctity of life and the intrinsic dignity of every human being. It is a denial of our stewardship of the precious life that our Creator has entrusted to us.

The advocates for a culture of death claim that suicide is a human right. This campaign exposes the sham that euthanasia is all about compassion and preventing people dying with intolerable suffering. It isn’t really about that all. What it is about is a misguided at best group of persons who seek an ever expanding set of criteria under which suicide is promoted as the  answer to adversity and life’s problems. Ultimately though, it will be all about removing lives considered not worthy of living.

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New Zealand A Great Place To Die

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Media Release 18th October 2015

New Zealand has been ranked third in the world behind the United Kingdom and Australia in the 2015 Quality of Death Index, for the quality of its palliative care for the terminally ill. There is very little difference in the score of the top three. These three nations were in the same order in 2010.  The Hospice movement, palliative care specialist nurses and doctors should be applauded by our community for promoting a culture of life through the quality of palliative care with pain control and death with dignity in New Zealand. We should also be grateful for the extensive funding provided by government for palliative care in New Zealand.

The Index was prepared by the Economist Intelligence Research Team. The Index lists 40 countries. The Index scores countries across four categories: Basic end of Life Health Environment; Availability of End of Life Care; Cost of end of Life Care; and Quality of End of Life Care.

Right to Life asks in the light of the world class palliative care with pain control available in New Zealand why are the ACT Party, the Green Party and the Labour Party planning to introduce legislation that would allow doctors to kill their patients or assist in their suicide? 

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House of Commons Rejects Assisted Suicide

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No AS Media Release 12 September

The House of Commons in a free vote have soundly rejected at the second reading of the Marris Assisted Dying bill, 330 to 118 on 10 September. This is the first vote on this issue in almost 20 years. Now the message from politicians has been an overwhelming rejection of the “right to die.”

This is a timely message for our New Zealand Parliament as it considers the petition of the Hon Maryan Street. We should follow the outstanding example of the Commons and reject a culture of death and reaffirm the sanctity of life ethic. Right to Life believes that this stunning victory for life should be a disincentive for Labour, Greens and ACT, to introduce a bill to the ballot to allow the strong to kill the weak.

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Scores of depressed patients euthanised in Belgium

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The following is a re-post of an article on MercatorNet by by Xavier Symons | 29 Aug 2015 |.  The article highlights the dangers inherent in any move to decriminalise New Zealand’s laws relating to Euthanasia.

A new study claims that vague terminology in Belgium’s assisted dying guidelines is allowing scores of psychiatric patients to be euthanized.

The worrying findings, published recently in the British Medical Journal Open, are based on a sample of 100 psychiatric patients in Belgium who requested euthanasia in the period 2007-2011.

Researchers found that most of the patients participating in the study had more than one diagnosed mental illness, with depression being the most common (59 patients) followed by split-personality disorder (50 patients).

Out of the 100 patients involved in the review, 48 had their euthanasia requests granted, and 35 carried it out. Among those remaining, 6 committed suicide, one died by palliative sedation, and one by anorexia.

The researchers are not disturbed by the thought of depressed patients being euthanized, but rather say the most pressing concern is to ensure individuals are compos mentis (of a sound mind):

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Assisted dying is the equivalent of a zero-hours contract with life

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We have an aging population. Globally, the number of over-65’s will triple by 2050The following is a re-post of an article in the UK’s The Guardian and is by Giles Fraser first posted on 28th August 2015

Politicians may have inadvertently stumbled upon a radical new way to address spiralling NHS costs. It’s called assisted dying, and it’s back before the House of Commons again next month. Though, in fact, it’s not a new way at all. Euripides had the same idea 500 years before the birth of Christ: “I hate the men who would prolong their lives / By foods and drinks and charms of magic art / Perverting nature’s course to keep off death / They ought, when they no longer serve the land / To quit this life, and clear the way for youth.”

We have an aging population. Globally, the number of over-65s will triple by 2050. Currently there are four people of working age supporting each pensioner in Britain. By 2050 that dependency ratio will be two to one. As the number of elderly people rapidly expands, so a far greater burden of care will fall on the young. Taxes will rise to meet the demand of pensions and NHS costs. Conflicts over intergenerational fairness will intensify.

No politician will ever come out and say that those who “no longer serve the land” should choose suicide. No, assisted dying, its current proponents insist, must only ever be a personal choice in a very specific set of circumstances. But let us not pretend that this “personal choice” is unaffected by wider economic realities. For as a rapidly expanding elderly population makes increasing demands on healthcare, so the pressure to ration “expensive” treatments will grow – with what counts as expensive being continually recalculated downwards. And here the wider pressure – cultural, social, economic – will inevitably press towards a greater take-up of the suicide option. Yes, it will be a “personal choice”. But it will be a “personal choice” in the same way poorer people have a choice in supermarkets – a choice with few options.

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Overwhelming International Rejection of Euthanasia

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Right to Life welcomes and supports the Parliamentary Health Select Committee in its consideration of the petition of the Hon Maryan Street. The petition reads;

That the House of Representatives investigate fully public attitudes towards the introduction of legislation which would permit medically assisted dying in the event of a terminal illness or an irreversible condition which makes life unbearable.

Right to Life encourages the Committee to take note in its considerations of the overwhelming international rejection by legislatures of legislation proposing to allow doctors to kill their patients or assist in their suicide.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide were rejected by the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom in 2014, the Irish Supreme Court in 2013,  the United States Supreme Court in 2012 and the European Human Rights Court in 2015. [Read more…]

The Economist backs Belgian model of euthanasia

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Editor-in-chief of The Economist, Zanny Minton-Beddoes

This article is a repost by Michael Cook from the ‘Careful’ section of the Mercatornet website.

The world’s most influential news magazine, The Economist, has a new editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton-Beddoes, its former business affairs editor. One of the very first issues on which she has chosen to campaign is the legalization of euthanasia. This week’s cover story is “The right to die: why assisted suicide should be legal”. It is illustrated by a snuffed candle with a smoking wick.

In a podcast Minton-Beddoes says that there are three reasons for her stand. First, asssisted dying is  one of the great moral questions of our time, especially in the light of ageing populations around the world. Second, it fits neatly into The Economist’s philosophy of promoting autonomy and reducing government meddling. And third, public opinion can truly make a difference.

So, this week’s leader (the editorial) contends that while life may be sacred and suffering may confer its own dignity, autonomy is the truest manifestation of human dignity:

The most determined people do not always choose wisely, no matter how well they are counselled. But it would be wrong to deny everyone the right to assisted death for this reason alone. Competent adults are allowed to make other momentous, irrevocable choices: to undergo a sex change or to have an abortion. People deserve the same control over their own death. Instead of dying in intensive care under bright lights and among strangers, people should be able to end their lives when they are ready, surrounded by those they love.

they are urging readers to accept the boldest scheme on offer: Belgium’s euthanasia for almost anyone who asks for it….

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Euthanasia’s open season on the mentally ill

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The following post by Wesley J. Smith first appeared in First Things

A few years ago, I spoke about end-of-life care at a town-hall event; it quickly devolved into an intense debate on assisted suicide. When the time came for audience questions, a self-described “mentally ill” woman took the microphone and declared that she had a right to doctor-prescribed death. More than half the audience burst into applause.

Helping the mentally ill commit suicide was unthinkable not long ago. Today, it is a growing practice.

In the Netherlands, for example, psychiatrists legally kill their patients with the approval of colleagues and the culture. Indeed, the Dutch Journal of Psychiatry has encouraged psychiatrists to euthanize patients with severe mental illnesses (corrected Google translation):

Assisted suicide, as a last resort in psychiatry, legally admissible since 2002, has recently been legitimized in practice. The midwife of Death is now appropriate forpsychiatric patients, representing an emancipation of the psychiatric patient and psychiatry itself.

Netherlanders responded positively to their “emancipation”: The number of euthanasia deaths of the mentally ill rose from fourteen in 2012 to forty-two in 2013. Not coincidentally, a just-released study reports that 34 percent of the country’s general practitioners would consider euthanizing a mentally ill patient.

Belgium is even more enthusiastic than the Netherlands about euthanizing those with psychiatric illnesses. The most well-known case is that of Godelieva De Troyer, who was euthanized by oncologist and palliative medicine professor Wim Distelmans. De Troyer did not have cancer; after a lifelong struggle with depression, she consulted with Distelmans (now a famous euthanasia doctor and advocate) for the sole purpose of being made dead.

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