Media Release 14 November 2023
Right to Life requests that the incoming Prime Minister Christopher Luxon does not concede in coalition negotiations with David Seymour that he be given responsibility for conducting the contentious review of the End of Life Choice Act to be conducted in 2024.
Right to Life believes that a genuine review of the Act will reveal the horrific damage inflicted on our community by this immoral and dangerous legislation.
The legislation violates the fifth commandment of God, Thou shalt not kill. It violates human rights and is a crime against humanity. Only a fool says there is no God. We violate His commandments at our peril.
David Seymour, leader of ACT and his deputy leader Brooke van Velden MP both passionate advocates for increasing the number of persons eligible to be put to death, authorised and fully funded by the state, as having lives not worthy of living, under the pretence that it is health care provided by the End of Life Choice Act.
Right to Life warns the community to resist every effort that might be made by ACT, Labour and the Greens in the forth-coming review that will increase the threat to the lives of the vulnerable in New Zealand to being killed by their doctor with a lethal injection or assisted in suicide.
David Seymour has already disclosed that he wants the killing to be available to those who are not in a terminal condition, such as Huntington’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis or Motor Neuron disease. Where will Seymour’s list end, why not include, dementia, alysymers and anorexia nervosa?
Right to Life believes that there are other changes that will encourage vulnerable patients to encourage them to accept that they have a duty to accept a lethal injection or be assisted in suicide. They will cease to be a burden on their family and on the health service.
The Australian euthanasia experience should be a stark warning of the sinister plans that the peddler of death David Seymour has for our community now that he is in government and seated at the cabinet table.
The Australian Central Territory [ACT] euthanasia bill removes the requirement that the patient is expected to die within six months, there will be no life expectancy limit. The age restriction will not be 18 years old but 14. The first state to legalise euthanasia, Victoria does not permit doctors to initiate a conversation about it with patients, other states do. The ACT bill allows not only doctors but nurses, social workers and counsellors to raise the topic.When an elderly vulnerable patient is told by these highly trained professionals that killing you is the preferred treatment option, is this not coercion?
David Seymour said with the passing of the EOLC Act that there would be an extraordinary small number of people seeking a lethal injection. The reality is that since the Act became law on 7th November 2021 there have been 565 patients killed by the state. If we follow Canada’s example with a death rate of 4% from Medical Aid in Dying [MAID], 2016 we can expect more than 1,500 to be killed by the state each year. Is this the society that we want for our children and grandchildren?
Ken Orr,
Spokesperson,
Right to Life New Zealand Inc.