Formerly Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (Christchurch Branch) Inc.

PO BOX 668 CHRISTCHURCH

Phone (03) 359 4326 Fax (03) 386 0447 Web Page www.rigbt-to-life.org

30 November 2000

PATRONS Bishop John Cunneen D.D. Bishop M.L. Wiggins B.S.L.Th. Father Patrick Kennedy Hon H.J. Walker C.M.G.J.P. K.C.L.J Rev J.A. Haverland B.A., B.D., Th.M. Mr Graham Capill B.D. LL.B. Prof. Scott Davidson M.A. (CANTAB) MEDIA RELEASE

The New Zealand Parliament should not follow the example of Holland in legalising Euthanasia - which represents a culture of death that has produced abortion and infanticide. It would be an unwise and dangerous social policy to legalise Euthanasia.

New Zealand is a signatory to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which describes the rights to life and liberty as inalienable rights.

An inalienable right is one that no one may be deprived of, nor even deprive oneself of. Euthanasia is about doctors assisting in the suicide of their patients or killing their patients. Doctors who permitted by law to kill their patients become the most dangerous men in the land.

We should learn from the Dutch experience with Euthanasia. The report of the Dutch Governmental Committee on Euthanasia in 1991 disclosed that abuse had become an accepted norm. In 1990 more than one thousand people died from involuntary Euthanasia, meaning that doctors killed these patients without the patient's knowledge or consent.

In addition, 8100 patients died as a result of doctors deliberately giving them overdoses of pain medication not for the primary purpose of controlling pain, but to hasten the patient's death.

The practice of Euthanasia in Holland now includes the severely handicapped newborns and psychiatric reasons. The majority of all euthanasia deaths in Holland are involuntary deaths.

If we legalised Euthanasia it would threaten the lives of other citizens who did not seek to be killed.

This Society supports the NZMA in it's opposition to legalised Euthanasia.

Yours sincerely, Ken Orr Spokesperson

Phone: (03) 385 6111 Fax: (03) 386 0447

Defending life from conception to natural death.

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