Media Release 23 September 2023
Sir Roger Douglas, a founder of ACT believes that ACT has lost its way and refuses to vote for ACT at the 2023 general election.
Right to Life encourages electors concerned with protecting our right to life and free speech to follow the example of Sir Roger.
Right to Life believes that the ACT Party, which promotes itself as defender of free speech, is actually opposed to free speech.
Right to Life believes that the ACT Party that supports the killing of the unborn and the vulnerable should not be trusted to govern the born.
In May this year David Seymour and his deputy leader Brooke van Velden announced that they were opposed to the pro-life advocacy of National Member of Parliament Simon O’Connor, the electorate MP for Tamaki.
In order to silence Simon O’Connor, Brooke van Velden was committed to contesting the election for the Tamaki electorate and removing him from Parliament.
This unprecedented action reveals to the community the ACT party’s strident support for the killing of unborn children and the suppression of free speech in defence of life in Parliament.
The electorate should be aware that David Seymour voted in support of the Abortion Legislation Act 2020, which effectively allows abortion up to birth.
Seymour also voted in support of the End of Life Choice Act 2019, which legally allows a doctor to kill a terminally ill patient with a lethal injection or to assist in their suicide.
David Seymour also voted in support of the Safe Area legislation, which violates free speech and makes it illegal for any person, in a designated safe area of 150 metres around a hospital or abortion clinic, to communicate with or offer assistance to a woman to choose life for her baby.
David Seymour on his election tour of New Zealand proclaims, “ACT exists to do more than just win office and hold it. We want to equip New Zealand with the best policies in the world. We stand for real change.”
Right to Life believes that the ACT Party, which was shamefully at the forefront in promoting and supporting the End of Life Choice Act [EOLC Act] 2019, which permits doctors to kill their patients with a lethal injection or to assist their suicide, will be vigorously promoting amendments to this law in 2024.
The review of the EOLC Act will be conducted in 2024. The leader of ACT, David Seymour, advised Right to Life on 28th November 2021, that it was his intention to reinstate the following original intentions of the 2019 EOLC Bill at the earliest opportunity:
Those who have stipulated euthanasia, if appropriate, in their “advance care directives” to be given a lethal injection at a time decided by the doctor.
Those who, “have a grievous and irremediable medical condition, including an illness, disease or disability, that causes enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual.” will qualify for euthanasia.
Right to Life believes that David Seymour will also seek the following amendments :-
Remove requirement that 2 doctors certify that their patient is expected to die within six months.
Remove the prohibition of doctors initiating discussion about “assisted dying" in a range of options for care.
Right to Life believes that this would lead to intolerable pressure on patients to believe that they were a burden on their families and on society. The right to die would then become a duty to die.
Ken Orr,
Spokesperson,
Right to Life New Zealand Inc.