Right to Life New Zealand

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

Doctor – killing patients rewarding!

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Media Release 14 January 2023

Will New Zealand follow the example of Canada? More than 10,000 patients were killed in Canada by their doctor with a lethal injection or assisted in suicide in 2021. A total of 31,664 patients have been killed since 2016.

Dr Ellen Wiebe is possibly the most prolific serial killer in Canada and she boasts to have killed more than 400 patients since the introduction in 2016 of the euphemistically titled euthanasia law, Medical Aid in Dying (MAID).

Dr Wiebe who is also a dedicated abortionist claims this is “the most rewarding work we’ve ever done.”

Dr Wiebe is an ardent supporter of choice and will kill those that other doctors refuse to kill. ,” a suicidal man who wanted a lethal injection was refused by a doctor because he did not have a serious illness.” Dr Wiebe flew him to Vancouver and killed him there by euthanasia. Dr Wiebe supports a lethal injection for those who are lonely or poor.

In March 2023, Canada will allow mental health patients with no physical ailments to seek doctor-assisted suicide, this will be a threat to the lonely and poor.

We should be aware of how a culture of death has expanded in Canada with the passing of MAID in 2016. In 6 years the number killed each year has increased tenfold.   

Right to Life believes that our community should be aware of the increasing threat to the lives of the vulnerable in New Zealand posed by David Seymour, leader of the ACT Party and  the architect of the controversial anti-life End of Life Choice Act [EOLCA]. He has advised that he will be seeking amendment of the Act to remove terminal illness as a criteria. He also seeks to include disability as grounds for euthanasia and advance directives to permit patients with dementia or Alzheimer’s to be given a lethal injection.

The government of Jacinda Ardern supports doctors being empowered to kill patients with a lethal injection or assist in their suicide. The government promotes this killing, in the words of the Minister of Health, Andrew Little, as a “new health Service. It is fully funded by the government and doctors are paid up to $3,000 for each patient terminated. The Ministry of Health has the responsibility of overseeing the administration of the EOLCA and has a team of seven persons dedicated to ensuring that all New Zealanders have access to this “health service.”

Right to Life is committed to continue campaigning for the repeal of this contentious legislation and opposing any amendment proposed by David Seymour or anyone else that will threaten the lives of the vulnerable in New Zealand.

Ken Orr

Spokesperson,

Right to Life  New Zealand Inc.

Labour government kills 214 vulnerable patients in first year of legislation

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Media Release 13 November 2022

Right to Life believes that this report represents the government’s rejection of the authority of our Creator and His fifth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”.

 Right to Life is disappointed that the Labour government of Jacinda  Ardern is prepared to authorise and fund the killing of vulnerable New Zealanders under the guise of health care. This is the first government in New Zealand that has permitted the withdrawal of ethical medical care to be replaced with a lethal injection. It is noticeable that the Prime Minister and her government by their deafening silence refuse to take ownership of this shameful historical first annual report on the killing of vulnerable patients whose lives were deemed to be not worthy of living. 

The Registrar of Assisted Dying, Dr Kristin Good, has presented her report on the patients who have been killed by their doctor or assisted in suicide under the authority of the contentious End of Life Choice Act 2019 for the period 7 November, 2021 to 30 September 2022.

A total of 214 vulnerable patients were killed out of the 294 applicants who were confirmed as eligible. There were 80 patients who withdrew their request, died before their scheduled killing or were still waiting to be terminated.

The Registrar reports that:-

  • 174 [or 81.3%] were killed in their own home or another person’s residence.
  • 17 [or 7.9%] were killed in an aged care facility.
  • 14 [or 6.5%] were killed in a public hospital.
  • 9 [or 4.2%] were killed in a public hospice facility.

Right to Life is opposed to all euthanasia and is appalled that some vulnerable patients are being killed in public hospitals, aged care facilities and presumably in one hospice in contravention of the hospice movement’s prohibition of euthanasia. Right to Life is conducting a campaign to encourage retirement villages to adopt a policy of being euthanasia free.

Reasons for being ineligible for a lethal injection or assistance in suicide.

  • 44, Not experiencing unbearable suffering to be relieved in a tolerable manner.
  • 66, Does not suffer from a terminal illness that is likely to end their life in six months.
  • 44, Not in an advanced state of irreversible decline in physical capability.

SCENZ Group Practitioners, The Support and Consultation for End of Life in New Zealand (SCENZ) Group lists 132 unique practitioners, 92 Attending medical practitioners, 81 Independent medical practitioners,11 psychiatrists and 11 nurse practitioners, who are cooperating with the EOLC Act. There are some practitioners filling dual roles.

Right to Life commends and supports medical professionals who refuse to participate in the killing of their patients by killing them with a lethal injection or assist in their suicide.

There are more than 15,000 registered medical practitioners in New Zealand. This list of health practitioners in New Zealand prepared to facilitate the killing of patients confirms that the vast majority of medical practitioners faithfully uphold their medical ethics not to take the life of their patients.

Ken Orr,

Spokesperson,

Right to Life NZ Inc.

It is cheaper to kill patients than to care for them

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Media Release 10 July 2022

The government is aware that fully funding palliative care is expensive. Is the government wishing, by underfunding palliative care, to encourage vulnerable patients who cannot access palliative care to choose a lethal injection or assistance in suicide?

 The Minister of Health, Andrew Little is generously providing $100 million in this year’s budget for mental health over the next four years, but no additional funding for palliative care.

There are 32 hospices in New Zealand providing world class palliative care. In 2021 it is estimated that it cost $178 million to provide this care. The government provides $88 million and hospices are left to raise the balance from their op shops, raffles, cake stalls and charity events.

Right to Life asks the Minister why the government fully funds as a core health service its “assisted dying” service that allows a doctor to kill their patient with a lethal injection or assist in their suicide, while hospices are only partially funded. Doctors who are prepared to provide this “assisted dying service” are generously rewarded by the State with up to $3,000, for every patient removed from the health service, plus travelling allowances to access patients living in remote areas.

The government is committed to promoting “assisted dying” and has established a special unit of seven full time staff in the Ministry of Health to oversee and promote access to this new service. Its name is the Quality Assurance & Safety Health Systems Improvement & Innovation team. The Ministry has no dedicated unit to promote hospices or palliative care.

The government should give a firm commitment to promote a culture of life by increasing funding to  hospices to allow care to be given to those who reside in remote areas. Hospices provide quality compassionate palliative care for our most vulnerable members when they are suffering a terminal illness or from dementia and other serious illnesses. This is care that recognises the dignity and the inalienable right to life of every human being. It is also affirming the role of the medical profession as carers and not killers.

We should promote a culture of life by fiercely protecting our palliative care and hospice movement We must reject a culture of death by strongly opposing “assisted dying”.

Hospices make a huge difference to people’s lives by ensuring terminally ill people are as free from pain and suffering as possible. They also provide care and support for families and friends. In 2020 10,374 people with a terminal illness received care and support in dying from hospice services throughout New Zealand and hospice staff made over 145,000 visits to people in their homes.

Right to Life believes that we should be very grateful to the doctors and nurses who staff our world class Hospices for the care and compassion they administer to our most vulnerable citizens. We can live without euthanasia.

Ken Orr

Spokesperson,

Right to Life NZ Inc.

Government should prohibit euthanasia in aged care facilities

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Media Release 24 April 2022

To protect our most vulnerable loved ones the government must impose a total prohibition on euthanasia and assisted suicide in aged care facilities. Administering a lethal injection or assisting in suicide is not health care and it has no place in a retirement home.  Would you place your loved ones in a retirement home if you knew that that home allowed them to be killed at their facility? Right to Life has warned for years that the right to die will ultimately become a duty to die.

Right to Life believes that we have a duty to protect our vulnerable elderly in aged care facilities and those in dementia care, who are in dire peril of being given a lethal injection or assisted in their suicide, under the guise that this is health care. 

The first Assisted Dying report from the Registrar of [Assisted Dying] for the period 7th November 2021 to 31st March 2022 revealed that 66 people had been killed during that period. 6% had been killed by a doctor in a Public Hospital, 4% in a hospice facility, 17% in aged care facilities and 73% in the person’s home or another private residence.

Right to Life is very concerned that twelve patients were killed in retirement homes. We are opposed to our loved ones in care becoming victims to a lethal injection or being assisted to commit suicide. Right to Life encourages the management of aged care facilities to protect the residents entrusted into their care by declaring their facilities euthanasia free.

There are 422 rest home villages in New Zealand with 47,249 elderly people in residence. It is estimated that this number will increase to 81,000 people in rest homes by 2033.

New Zealand already has a disturbing rate of elder abuse. Aged Concern believes that one in ten persons over the age of sixty-five are victims of elder abuse. Euthanasia is the ultimate form of elder abuse. In Holland 500 people are killed each year with a lethal injection, without their knowledge or consent.

The government supports doctors killing their patients or assisting in their suicide and is prepared to pay doctors up to $3,000 for each patient killed. It assures the community that the End of Life Choice Act 2019 is very safe and provides protection for patients. We should not be seduced by these assurances because overseas experience reveals that the law soon gets extended to include advance directives and the killing of those with dementia and Alzheimer’s. Overseas experience also shows that the mentally ill are now eligible for euthanasia. In the Netherlands last year, 116 persons were euthanised for reasons of mental illness.

There are currently an estimated 70,000 persons have dementia in New Zealand, with the number expected to rise to 170,000 by 2050, with the cost for their care totalling $5.9 billion. It was the Royal Commission on Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion that stated in its report to Parliament in 1977:- “ that if we failed to recognise the humanity and right to life of the unborn child then a future government would deny the humanity of those at the other end of life.”

Right to Life warns our Parliament and government that if they continue to ignore this prophetic warning and continue to uphold the legal fiction in the Crimes Act, section 159 that states that the unborn child is not a human being until it is born, then a future government will adopt the fiction that a person with dementia or Alzheimer’s is no longer a human being, has forfeited their right to life and may be killed at the direction of the state with a lethal injection, all of course under the guise that it is a “health service”.

Ken Orr,

Spokesperson,

Right to Life

Government should prohibit euthanasia in public and private hospitals

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Media Release 21 April 2022

Euthanasia is part of a culture of death that seeks to replace a culture of life.

Right to Life requests the Minister of Health, Andrew Little, to save our public health system from imminent destruction.  We ask him to uphold the common good by protecting our public health service and by instituting a regulatory requirement that assisted suicide and euthanasia be prohibited in Public and Private Hospitals in New Zealand.

 Right to Life supports the Minister of Health, Hon. Andrew Little, in his expectation that doctors do not kill their patients with a lethal injection or assist their suicide in a Public Hospital.

The Minister was quoted in the NZ Herald as saying in a media release on 12th October, 2021 “We expect that in most circumstances, these services will be provided in the community and will be free for people who meet the strict eligibility criteria.”

The Minister has given no public encouragement for people to seek to end their life in a Public Hospital by a lethal injection or with assistance to commit suicide.

The first Assisted Dying report from the Registrar of [Assisted Dying] for the period 7th November 2021 to 31st March, 2022 however, revealed that of the 66 people who had been killed during that period 6% had been killed by a doctor in a Public Hospital, 4% in a hospice facility, 17% in aged care facilities and 73% in the person’s home or another private residence.

Right to Life believes that this prohibition would have majority support from the community. We also believe that an overwhelming number of doctors and nurses employed in Public and Private Hospitals are totally opposed to assisting in the killing of patients. The Ministry of Health estimates that only ten percent of health professionals were prepared to assist with the killing of their patients.

The introduction of euthanasia and a culture of death will contribute to the destruction of the morals and ethics of the staff dedicated to upholding the sanctity of life ethic and the protection of the lives of their patients.

The introduction of euthanasia will seriously undermine the trust and confidence that the public have had for more than 170 years in our public health system. This system has rested on the premise that  we will receive care for our health and respect and protection for our life. Who would willingly be admitted to a hospital if they were unsure whether they were going to be cared for or killed? Euthanasia will replace the sanctity of life ethic with a quality of life ethic. Who will be safe in a hospital bed when killing the patient becomes a treatment option?

The right to die will soon become a duty to die. Every year in Holland more than 500 people are victims of involuntary euthanasia in being killed by a doctor without their knowledge or consent. This is a violation of human rights and is homicide.

Doctors killing their patients or assisting in their suicide is not health care; it is a violation of human rights and unjustly deprives patients of palliative care which provides ethical pain relief and compassionate treatment that neither hastens nor postpones death. There is no place for euthanasia in our public health system.

Ken Orr,

Spokesperson,

Right to Life

State kills sixty-six vulnerable patients

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Media Release 18 April 2022

The government of Jacinda Ardern has authorised and funded the killing of sixty-six vulnerable patients in the period between the End of Life Choice coming into force on the 7 November 2021 and 31 March 2022. These patients were killed by a doctor with a lethal injection or assisted in their suicide.

 The government pays doctors up to $3,000 for each patient they remove from the health system and terminate. Treasury would confirm that it is cheaper to kill patients than to care for them.

The government promotes euthanasia as giving patients a right to choose. This ‘right’ will ultimately become a duty to die when we become a burden on the state  Right to Life believes that the End of Life Choice Act actually empowers doctors to kill their patients, violates their medical ethics and avoids prosecution for murder. Doctors who wish to be trained serial killers become the most dangerous men in the land.

This quarterly report should fill our souls with terror and apprehension as we consider living in a state where the government  is prepared to decide who should live and who shall be killed, all under the guise of a health service. When the state assumes the right to decide whose lives are of value and who may be killed, we are living in a tyrannical state.

The Ministry of Health’s Registrar [assisted dying] Dr Kristin Good, has provided her first quarterly report on the assisted dying service.  The service activity is from 7th November 2021 to 31st March 2022. The report raises many important questions.

There were 205 people who had applied for this “service. ” 59 people were still in the process of assessment,  81 people did not continue the process due to being ineligible, withdrawing or having died.

The ethnicity  of those who applied was;

  • European/ Pakeha 162
  • Maori, 12
  • Pacific, nil
  • Asian  5

Nearly 50 patients had their lives terminated at home, more than 10 patients in retirement homes, 133 patients were suffering from Cancer and 164 patients were receiving palliative care.

There are 130 doctors on the Ministry’s list who are prepared to administer a lethal injection to their patients. This is in violation of the ethics of the World Medical Association that prohibits euthanasia. It also violates the fifth commandment of our Creator, “Thou shalt not kill,” we violate this commandment at our peril.

Do we want our medical profession to accept the killing of patients as a treatment option? Would you entrust your family into the hands of a doctor who was prepared to kill you as a treatment option? Will you accept that a condition for entry to medical school is a willingness to kill your patients or assist in their suicide?

Right To Life is committed to the repeal of the End of Life Choice Act 2019 . We will seek to expose it for the threat that it is to the most vulnerable. We will vigorously oppose the expected attempts of the ACT Party to extend the scope of the killing to include those with a disability and the inclusion of advance directives. We will not rest until this evil legislation is revoked.

Ken Orr,

Spokesperson,

Right to Life

 

State Killing of Patients Welcomed by Minister of Health

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Media Release 11 December 2021

Right to Life deplores and grieves over the government’s abandonment of its fundamental duty to God and the community to uphold the sanctity of life of every human being created in the image and likeness of God. The government defying the fifth commandment, Thou shalt not kill, will endure the wrath of God.  

 The Minister of Health, Andrew Little, stated that New Zealand was now ready for “assisted dying.” The Ministry of Health’s website proclaims, “Assisted dying is a new health service in New Zealand.”

Assisted dying is a new health service in New Zealand Aotearoa, a core health service with unlimited funding. The commencement of killing vulnerable patients or assisting in their suicide is a radical and diabolical change in our health care. The government of Jacinda Ardern is the first government in New Zealand’s history to have promoted legislation that empowers a doctor or practice nurse to assist in the assisted suicide or killing of a patient with a lethal injection. This is the government of compassion and kindness.

Emma Prestidge, group manager of the Quality Assurance & Safety group at the Ministry of Health responsible for overseeing the “new health service,” advised RNZ on 18th November that up to ten patients had been legally killed since the 7th November, she has declined to provide any further information on the numbers on the grounds that the service is new and emotive.

 The Ministry claims that it is anticipated that there will be about 950 requests for this new service in the first year with about 350 being approved. Euthanasia was legalised in Netherlands in 2001. In 2019 there were 6,361 patients legally killed, representing 4.4 % of the total deaths. In addition a further 500 patients are killed annually by involuntary euthanasia without the patient’s consent. If we follow Holland’s example we may anticipate in a short time legally killing more than 1,200 vulnerable patients and disabled persons every year. 

Right to Life warns the community that we are going to be subject to an aggressive campaign by ACT to expand the grounds for killing vulnerable patients

Right to Life wrote to David Seymour, leader of ACT on 17th November, who was proud to be the sponsor and enthusiastic promoter of the End of Life Choice bill. We asked him:

“Is it the policy of Act to seek or support amendments to the End of Life Choice Act that would reinstate your original objectives to provide “ assisted death” for:- Those with advance directives? For those who “have a grievous enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual?”

He replied on 28th November, “Of course that is what the bill should read, I suspect we will give it a while until your fear mongering is mugged by reality, then we will press on.”

 Right to Life is committed to the repeal of this anti-life act and will vigorously oppose any efforts by ACT to amend the legislation to include advance directives, the killing of the disabled, children, babies and those with dementia or Alzheimer’s and removal of the requirement that the patient has six months to live.    

Ken Orr,

Spokesperson,

Right to Life (N.Z.) Inc.

Is the Government really serious about child poverty in New Zealand?

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Media Release 22 May 2021

The Labour government’s 2021 “wellbeing budget” is an historic budget, for never before has a government budgeted for more money for the killing of New Zealanders under the guise of health care.  

Right to Life believes that those who kill the unborn and the very sick do not have a right to govern or to sit in our Parliament. The first duty of the state is to uphold the sanctity of life and protect the life of every human being from conception till natural death.

Right to Life also believes that the community should be aware that hidden in the “wellbeing budget” is continuing funding for the killing of the unborn as an essential service and for the terminally ill with assisted suicide and euthanasia.

The government is encouraging us to believe that it is concerned for children living in poverty. Right to Life commends the government for increasing benefits, with the laudable objective of lifting up to 33,000 children out of poverty but asks, how can you really be concerned about children when you callously fund, in the same budget, for the state funded killing of more than 13,000 innocent and defenceless unborn children?

Why does the government not realise that the ultimate child poverty is to be deprived of your life when you are unborn?

Is it not a violation of human rights and a crime against humanity for the government to authorise and fund the violent killing of our own children?

The Hon. Grant Robertson, Minister of Finance, has allocated to the Minister of Health, Hon Andrew Little :-

  • $5 million for the “purchase of services” for the killing of the unborn and for transfer of oversight and monitoring from Justice to Health.
  • $11 million for the implementation of assisted suicide and euthanasia and for health sector info systems and advice.
  • Considerable funding will also be provided to the new national Maori Health authority to ensure that Maori have full access to abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide.

This is in addition to the more than $13 million expended on the killing of unborn children in NZ by abortion.

It is disappointing that the news media are applauding the government  for this budget which promotes a culture of death, under the guise of a culture of life.

The Prime Minister stated on 12 September 2020:-

“I’ve made no secret of the fact that I want New Zealand to be the best place in the world to be a child. It’s an aspiration I’ve held for a long time. It’s one of the reasons I entered politics back in 2008.” 

Right to Life asks how can New Zealand be the best place in the world when the government approves and supports the funding of the killing each year of more than 13,000 unborn New Zealand children, who are violently poisoned, sucked from their mother’s wombs or brutally and painfully dismembered?

Ken Orr

Spokesperson

Right to Life

Stuff Concurs with Right to Life that the Government’s Euthanasia Referendum Website has a Serious Misleading Statement

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Right to Life Media Release 23rd August 2020

Right to Life commends the Deputy Editor of Stuff, (see Stuff letter of 20th August to Right to Life), for contacting the Ministry of Justice to request that the government’s euthanasia referendum website be updated to accurately reflect the full criteria of eligibility in the Act to receive a lethal injection or to be assisted in a suicide by a doctor. Stuff has advised us that they have also taken action to amend their story and other articles on their website. This action is in response to our letter of complaint to The Press of the 13th August  about misleading information contained in an article  “A choice of Life and Death published in The Press on 30th July 2020.

The relevant misleading statement was that patients are eligible for a lethal injection from their doctor if they “experience unbearable suffering that cannot be eased.” That is untrue, there is nothing in the End of Life Choice Act 2019 [EOLCA] that requires a patient to seek palliative care or any other treatment to relieve suffering. The inference is that there is nothing that can ease the unbearable suffering of the patient and that the patient is left with no other choice but to accept a lethal injection or to be assisted to commit suicide.

This is a very important issue, a person doesn’t need to try treatment first, “even if those options would likely help to cure their illness or treat their symptoms. Under this Act, assisted dying doesn’t have to be a last resort.” The End of Life Choice Act does not require euthanasia to be only a last resort. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act states that, “Everyone has the right to refuse to undergo any medical treatment.” Even treatments that “would likely help to cure their illness or treat their symptoms”.

One of the Act’s eligibility criteria is to “experience unbearable suffering that cannot be relieved in a manner that the person considers tolerable”. This is a glaringly and we think insurmountable problem with the EOLC Act.

The government’s Referendum website information misrepresents this clause. The Act does not state only, “suffering that cannot be relieved”.  The phrase, “in a manner that the person considers tolerable”, means that a treatment may exist that would relieve the person’s suffering, but that the person may refuse it because they don’t consider it “tolerable”. A person may be on a dialysis machine successfully maintaining the patient’s health but consider it intolerable and thus qualify for a lethal injection or assisted suicide.

Right to Life is concerned that this misinformation concerning eligibility is also contained in the pamphlet, “What Am I Voting On” produced by the government which was posted to every enrolled elector. Right to Life wrote to Andrew Kibblewhite, the Secretary for Justice and the  Chief Electoral Officer on the 11 August complaining of this misinformation in the pamphlet and asking that he urgently clarify this important information. To date there has been no reply.

Right to Life wrote to the Minister of Justice, Andrew Little on the 8th August to express concern about the misinformation on the government’s euthanasia referendum website. To date there has been no reply.

Right to Life believes that the government is withholding important information from the community concerning the End of Life Choice Act. The Minister of Justice, the Hon Andrew Little has set up a government website allegedly to provide information on the Act to assist the electorate to make an informed choice, in voting at the referendum. Right to Life believes that the real objective is to encourage a misinformed electorate to support the government’s agenda of social engineering by voting yes at the referendum.

Right to Life believes that it is inappropriate for the government to be involved in providing information on the referendum. The government is not neutral as we believe that 72% of its Labour members pressured by the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern  voted in support of the Act to empower doctors to kill their patients with a lethal injection or to assist in their suicide.

Ken Orr,

Spokesperson,

Right to Life

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