David Seymour – Bullying MPs to Support His Dangerous End of Life Choice Bill

Right to Life believes David Seymour is being irresponsible by cajoling MP’s who refuse to support his dangerous End of Life Choice bill. Following the results of a TV1 Colmar Brunton poll, Seymour was quoted as saying “that this poll is a wakeup call; “Too many MPs have ignored public opinion and in a democracy you do that at your peril.”

This Colmar Brunton poll asked respondents whether they thought a terminally ill person should be able to receive assistance from a doctor to end their life, The poll results indicated that 74 per cent said “yes” and 18 per cent said “no”.

In making the statements Seymour conveniently left out the fact that his bill provides for both doctors killing their patients with a lethal injection and doctor assisted suicide, that this applies to a range of persons not actually dying. In fact it includes provision for any persons from 18 years of age suffering from an irreversible physical or mental condition that in their view rendered their life unbearable.

In making the above statement Seymour also conveniently forgets that the only authentic expression of public opinion on euthanasia, is that expressed by the 21,277 members of the community who were motivated to make written submissions to the Parliamentary Health Select Committee on the wider issue. A careful analysis of all the submissions revealed that 16,411 or 77 per cent of the submissions were opposed to euthanasia. Observers report that the vast majority of the more than 1,200 oral submissions were also opposed to euthanasia. Not a mention of this from Seymour, simply cherry picking to suit his agenda.

Right to Life believes the wording of any poll may elicit a response dependent on that wording. Right to Life contends that the question asked in the latest Colmar Brunton poll, is far too simplistic and does not in any way address the potential harm that any such move to decriminalise euthanasia poses to society.

David Seymour knows that the expected report of the Health Committee will reflect the overwhelming opposition to changing the law to allow doctors to kill their patients or assist in their suicide. Again we ask, why is David Seymour strangely silent about this important report? Is he intending to ignore the report and public opinion and continue to foist this bill on this nation? Will David Seymour abide by the democratic process once the findings of the Parliamentary Select Committee are made public? Will he accept the will of the people by withholding support for his bill at the first reading should the Committee reject decriminalisation, or will he continue to push his barrow that doctors should be able to kill their patients, which will endanger the most vulnerable members of our community?

MPs have an inalienable responsibility to their Creator, themselves and the community to courageously promote a culture of life and oppose a culture of death by following fearlessly a well formed conscience. Euthanasia is intrinsically evil and cannot be supported regardless of a badly misinformed public opinion.

Right to Life believes that this poll is a further example of the manipulation of public opinion by promoting the murder of the vulnerable under the guise of compassion. The question in the poll uses seductive lies designed to make murder acceptable. If TV 1 are going to engage a poll in which the question leads to a passive acceptance of euthanasia, we challenge them to conduct a poll where the following question is asked? Do you think that a person who is clinically depressed, has dementia, Alzheimer’s, or another disability should have the right to have a doctor kill him by administering a lethal injection, or assisting him to commit self-murder, i.e. suicide?

We make no apology for asking TV1 and the rest of the New Zealand media, who supposedly are at the service of the community, when they are going to stop promoting euthanasia and give the public the real facts about doctor assisted suicide and homicide. The results of what happens when a jurisdiction decriminalizes euthanasia and allows doctors to assist in the suicide of their patients is now startlingly clear.

Many examples of abuse are now coming in world wide. For example, every five years the Dutch government does a study into how the euthanasia law is working. The latest study found that: “strict protective guidelines” supposed to protect these helpless patients from being killed against their will are being flouted, leading to the deaths of 431 people in 2015, none of whom gave clear consent. The Dutch government intends to introduce legislation to extend euthanasia with the “Completed Life Bill” which would allow anybody age 75 or older to be euthanized even if they are healthy. If the legislation is approved, it would mean that doctor-assisted suicide would be available to any adult who wants it. The Royal Dutch Medical Association recently announced that every Dutch citizen over the age of 70 years was now eligible for euthanasia. Euthanasia is a monster with an insatiable appetite. We release this monster into our community at our peril.

Ken Orr

Spokesperson,

Right to Life.

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