Media Release 1 December 2024
Right to Life opposes the 25 recommendations made by the Ministry of Health, in its first review of the End of Life Choice Act 2019. Right to Life believes that the community should be alarmed at the warning of 2 previous members of the Review Committee who warned that
“oversight is so limited that wrongful deaths could go undetected”.
The recommendations are intended to empower doctors to safely kill more vulnerable patients, with a lethal injection or assist in their suicide. Euthanasia is intrinsically evil, as it violates the fifth commandment of God, “Thou shalt not kill”, it is always morally wrong to kill a patient. The protection of life is the foundation of the law and of medicine.
The Ministry of Health has presented its first mandatory review of the End of Life Choice Act to the Minister of Health, Dr Shane Reti. It will now be presented to Parliament for its consideration. The government has agreed that any amendment of the legislation will be sought by private members Bills.
The 157 page report of the review contains 25 recommendations which have been made by those who are involved in killing patients with a lethal injection or assisting in their suicide.
The review claimed that the Act has “largely been operating well” and it had resulted in 978 vulnerable patients being killed with a lethal injection or being assisted in suicide, since the introduction of the legislation on 7th November 2021 until the 30th September 2024. There were 2,400 patients who had made an application to have their lives terminated under the new law.
The review revealed that:
• 772 persons were killed in their own home or another residence:
• 91 patients [9.3 %] were killed in a hospital.
• 86 patients were killed in an aged care facility.
• 29 patients were killed in a hospice.
The review expressed concern that the number of doctors available to terminate the lives of patients was too small. There were also only a small number of psychiatrists available. It was recommended that the requirement that an applicant requesting to be killed was expected to die from an illness within six months be repealed. This would then provide for persons who were not dying and for those who had suffered an injury to have their lives terminated.
It was recommended that the prohibition of a doctor raising the issue of euthanasia be repealed, doctors would then be permitted to raise the issue as part of a conversation on treatment options. Right to Life believes that It would then be permissible for a doctor to inform a patient that “the best treatment I can provide you with is a lethal injection. Extending your life is a burden on our health services, our hospital staff and the community.” This amendment would further undermine the trust that we should have in the medical profession that they will not kill us.
It was recommended that care facilities provide reasonable access to assisted dying to those who request it, particularly for those where the facility is the person’s home (‘care facilities’ means public hospitals, private hospitals, hospices, residential aged care facilities, disability residential care facilities, and rest homes or other similar facilities where care is provided to a person (e.g., due to illness, disease, incapacity, or disability)).
Care facilities would be required to do the following:
• Provide the contact details of the Assisted Dying Service to a person if they request it.
• Allow assisted dying practitioners access to a person on site for assisted dying appointments and assessments or facilitate transfer of the person to the practitioner.
• Allow assisted dying practitioners access to the person on site for administration of a lethal injection or to assist in their suicide.
Right to Life believes that euthanasia is incompatible with palliative care and that if hospices were forced to allow patients to be killed by a doctor, this would ultimately be promoted as the preferred choice and would in time become a duty to die.
We have a right when placing our loved ones in care to be assured that they will not be killed, this assurance will be lost if this amendment becomes law.
It was recommended that the Ministry of Health provide pamphlets promoting euthanasia as a health service, which should be widely available in doctors’ surgeries and other public places.
Right to life supports the repeal of this legislation and has a petition to Parliament seeking this objective.
We do not support any amendments which will increase the number of vulnerable patients who will become victims to this evil legislation, which undermines the sanctity of life and the ethics of the medical profession.
Ken Orr,
Spokesperson,
Right to Life New Zealand Inc.