Right to Life makes the following correction to this media release. The letter that prompted this from the Ministry of Health is posted below this article.
Correction
The Manager of the Regulatory Assurance Quality Assurance and Safety Group
Te Pou Whakamaru | Regulation & Monitoring has requested that Right to Life clarifies that Ministry of Health officials did not make a presentation to the Funeral Directors Association. encouraging funeral homes to provide facilities on their premises, to enable doctors to kill their patients with a lethal injection or assist in their suicide.
Ministry of Health officials did not attend, or give a presentation to the Funeral Directors Association. Presentations however were made by members of the Ministry of Health Assisted Dying Secretariat which is a distinct and separate entity to Health New Zealand.
Media Release 29 May 2024
Providing a lethal injection to a patient or assisting in their suicide at a funeral home violates the fifth commandment of God, “You shalt not kill” and violates the human rights to life of the patient.
Right to Life supports the ethics of funeral directors in upholding their duty to fulfil the corporal work of mercy to bury the dead in a dignified manner. In fulfilling this duty they are showing respect for the body of the deceased person, who was made in the image and likeness of God.
Funeral Directors Association CEO Gillian Boyes, recently advised that funeral homes are stepping up for those who choose euthanasia, in some cases allowing an assisted death on their premises. She says the decision can be hard and she would like to see two changes: counselling and support for family / whānau who don’t support a loved one’s wishes, and a change to remove “assisted death’' appearing on the death certificate, which can upset relatives, in other words concealing the true cause of death.
Ministry of Health officials at the AGM of the Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand, gave a presentation encouraging funeral homes to provide facilities on their premises, to enable doctors to kill their patients with a lethal injection or assist in their suicide.
Right to Life calls on the community to boycott any funeral home that provides facilities for the killing of vulnerable patients. Funeral directors are members of a noble profession. There is no place for the killing of the vulnerable in funeral homes.
The Ministry officials stated: ”it was their mission to oversee the provision of high-quality assisted dying services that are “person centred, equitable and accessible to all in line with provision of the Act."
Right to Life is disturbed by this proposal, which seeks to normalise the killing of vulnerable patients and give this killing some respectability. It is indicative of euthanasia creep and is deeply offensive.
Wouldn't it be so convenient to have the patient euthanised at the funeral home, so that they could be killed and then embalmed on the same premises, then buried by the funeral director or cremated?
Funeral homes provide an important service to our community by :-
• Fulfilling the corporal works of mercy, to bury the dead.
• Fulfilling the spiritual works of mercy, providing comfort to the afflicted, and by providing facilities such as chapels to pray for the living and the dead.
Funeral homes are sacred places, which provide sanctuary for our precious dead, they must not be desecrated with the blood of those who are killed in the funeral home with a lethal injection by a doctor.
The Labour government’s proposal was part of the advancing culture of death. Does the National led government intend to continue to promote this approach?
Right to Life believes that they have corrupted the medical profession, the nursing profession, the midwifery profession, the pharmacy profession and now they seek to corrupt the funeral directors profession with the promotion of euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Right to Life believes that the vast majority of the community would be appalled if a funeral home complied with this request to allow their facilities to be used for “assisted dying” or euthanasia.
Right to Life makes no apology in speaking up in defence of funeral homes. We request, in the interest of our community, that the funeral directors profession reject this Ministry of Health's gruesome proposal, and refuse to allow their facilities to be used to kill vulnerable patients with a lethal injection or to be assisted in suicide.
Ken Orr,
Spokesperson,
Right to Life. New Zealand Inc.
Letter from MOH
12 June 2024 Ken Orr
Email: ken@righttolife.org.nz
133 Molesworth Street
PO Box 5013
Wellington 6140 New Zealand T+64 4 496 2000
Tena kōe Ken,
Thank you for your email from 11 June in response to our letter sent to you that same day. We appreciate you providing a copy of the FuneralCare newsletter, Issue 79 from August 2023 and confirmation that this is the source material for your website content. The article on pages 10 and 11 clearly state that “the Funeral Directors Association recently hosted a series of presentations by the Assisted Dying Service secretariat staff from Te Whatu Ora, Health New Zealand.”
As indicated in our letter of 11 June, Ministry of Health officials did not attend, or give a presentation. Health New Zealand and the Ministry of Health Assisted Dying Secretariat are two distinct and separate entities.
I trust this clarifies that Ministry officials did not attend these events. We appreciate you making the relevant adjustments to your website content.
Ngā mihi
Rob McHawk
Manager Regulatory Assurance Quality Assurance and Safety Group
Te Pou Whakamaru | Regulation & Monitoring