Lecretia Seales – NOT New Zealander of the Year

Media Release 23rd December 2016

Right to Life believes that the selection of Lecretia Seales as the New Zealander of the year by the NZ Herald, is unfortunate and inappropriate. The Herald saw her as brave and inspiring in taking an appeal to the High Court. Lecretia requested permission from the High Court to allow her doctor to give her a lethal injection. She also requested Justice Collins to declare that “assisted dying“ was a legal procedure and was distinct from assisted suicide. Finally she asked the Court to declare that if the Court did not believe that “assisted suicide” was legal then that her human rights were being violated.

The community should be grateful to Justice Collins that in his commendable and just judgment, he upheld the law and rejected all of her contentious and dubious demands.

A more worthy selection as the New Zealander of the year would be one of the specialist palliative care doctors who with the utmost respect for their patients heroically provide compassion and expert pain control in our nation’s 37 hospices to allow patients to die with true dignity. It is not necessary to kill the patient to kill the pain.

Lecretia Seales claimed that the High Court action was exclusively about her human rights and did not concern any other person in the community. This is untrue. Her misguided appeal, if it had been successful would have adversely affected the lives of every member of the community. Assisted suicide and homicide are serious crimes in the Crimes Act and are in the Act to protect the vulnerable in society; the aged, the disabled and the seriously ill. Lecretia by taking High Court action was placing in jeopardy the lives of the most vulnerable members of our community.

Lecretia’s attempt to have the High Court place a completely different interpretation on our laws prohibiting assisted suicide and homicide should be a matter of grave concern for the entire community. Those laws were put in place by parliament and have been upheld by the Courts for generations.

It should also be a matter of grave concern to the community that by seeking the permission of the Court to allow her doctor to kill her she was undermining the ethic of the medical profession to respect the sanctity of life ethic. This would have undermined the trust that the community has in the medical profession to do no harm and not to kill us.

Right to Life is also concerned that while Lecretia Seale’s actions were purported to be solely about her own situation they were clearly not.

Ken Orr
Spokesperson,
Right to Life

ENDS

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