August 2018

Dr John Fox has a PhD in English Literature from the University of Auckland. He has been an academic, worked in family and community restoration, public policy, and children’s and youth work. He is the uncle and brother of adopted children, a son, a disabled person with spastic hemiplegia, a human being, and an Anglican seminarian. He specialises in good coffee, teaching adults to read, music, and slow food.

As a representative of ELEVATE Christian Disability Trust, he shares his powerful Oral Submission made against David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill.

Stuff co.nz 23 August 2018
Family First Comment: The Select Committee are hearing the message loud and clear – reject assisted suicide. Reject Seymour’s bill.
www.Protect.org.nz

A Manawatū union organiser says proposed euthanasia legislation could force older, sick or mentally ill people into feeling pressured to end their lives.

Dion Martin, of Palmerston North, says the controversial End of Life Choice Bill, with its provision for “assisted dying”, is really about “dressed-up suicide”.

Martin has worked as a union organiser for 29 years and has witnessed vulnerable workers being pressured into doing things they didn’t want to.

“I think it can create a scenario where vulnerable people such as the elderly, the sick, those living with disability or mental health issues, yes, even young people who are currently having suicidal thoughts and feeling the anxiety of being isolated and have become very depressed – I believe they could feel coerced, under duress, feel under pressure to end their lives far, far too soon.”

He said the bill “opens a Pandora’s box”.

“If you normalise the so-called assisted dying, you create a whole lot of situations where it’s OK to take a life.”

Martin had experience with his elderly mother who thought she was a burden on the family and felt she was better off dead.
READ MORE: https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/106510733/Helpful-or-harmful-euthanasia-debate-comes-to-Manawat

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Radio NZ News 17 August 2018
Family First Comment: Yet more legitimate concerns about a flawed and dangerous bill.
“A person under the bill could easily meet the threshold, but could be profoundly affected by things like depression or other factors, there’s no requirement for the physician to consider conditions that might affect the person’s judgement or decision making,” she said. As a result, she feared it would undermine the position of disabled people.”
www.Protect.org.nz

The Disabilities Commissioner says the End of Life Choice Bill is too broad to protect disabled New Zealanders.

The Justice Select Committee has neared the end of a nationwide tour, after hearing 3500 verbal and 35,000 written submissions.

Yesterday, lawyer Julian Gardner and disability advocate Tricia Malowney, who were members of the advisory panel which was convened before Victoria legalised assisted dying for the terminally ill, said https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018658341/proposed-euthanasia-bill-in-nz-needs-tweaking

New Zealand’s bill needed tweaking.]

Disabilities Commissioner Paula Tesoriero said the Victorian legislation is only for those who have a terminal condition, which is likely to cause your death between six months and in some cases 12 months.

“In New Zealand that’s not the case, there’s no timeframe for a grievous and irremediable medical condition,” she said.

Ms Tesoriero said added safeguards in the legislation were woefully deficient.

“A person under the bill could easily meet the threshold, but could be profoundly affected by things like depression or other factors, there’s no requirement for the physician to consider conditions that might affect the person’s judgement or decision making,” she said.

As a result, she feared it would undermine the position of disabled people.
READ MORE: https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/364316/disabilities-commissioner-concerned-about-end-of-life-choice-bill

Stuff co.nz 17 August 2018
Family First Comment: Well said, Carolyn (who also writes for Mercatornet) “‘Finishing people off’ may suit our current individualistic, utilitarian, impatient culture, but it will degrade us all in the end.”
www.Protect.org.nz

To ask ‘Should Kiwis have a right to die with dignity?’ demonstrates exactly what is wrong with the framing of this discussion by euthanasia activists, pollsters and the media.

Of course Kiwis should be able to die in circumstances consistent with their intrinsic human dignity.

The proper question is: Should Kiwis have the legal ‘right’ to be put to death when they are terminally ill – or for any other reason such as severe disability or hopelessness? Is this consistent with human dignity?

The answer is no. To kill oneself is not consistent with human dignity, and neither is it for someone else to kill you. There cannot be a ‘right’ in the proper sense of the term (something essential to human dignity) to have someone end your life, as official euthanasia regimes require.

To define euthanasia as a right is to put upon the state the duty to provide people to kill you. This is an abuse of state power.
And, as with abortion, there will be pressure on doctors who refuse to do this to at least refer people requesting euthanasia to a doctor who will give the lethal injection. There will be pressure on care homes and hospices to allow such terminations despite it going against their own ethos. Those who object will ultimately be forced out of their profession.

Nine years ago today my 78-year-old sister died peacefully after living for more than 50 years with Parkinson’s disease, and after 6 years in rest home/nursing home care. During the last three years she was visited every day and helped with her main meal. The last 8 months she was cared for at home by family members.

The answer to suffering, physical or mental, is affection and good care. This should come first and as far as possible from family and community, supported by institutions.

“Finishing people off” may suit our current individualistic, utilitarian, impatient culture, but it will degrade us all in the end.
READ MORE: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/106357606/No-human-dignity-in-killing-or-being-killed

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Sydney Morning Herald 15 August 2018
Family First Comment: Well done Australia. Great news!
Now it’s NZ’s turn.
www.protect.org.nz

A private member’s bill that would have cleared the way for assisted suicide to be legalised across Australia has been defeated.

The bill, introduced by Liberal Democratic Party senator David Leyonhjelm, was defeated by 36 to 34 votes after two days of impassioned debate in the Senate.

It was knocked down after Liberal senator Anne Ruston and Nationals senator Steve Martin were persuaded to vote against the bill, after initially leaning in favour of it.

“I cannot in good conscience offer my support to this bill which will provide the territories the ability to legislate in the area of voluntary euthanasia, certainly without ensuring that appropriate safeguards were in place,” Senator Martin told the Senate on Wednesday.

Politicians from both sides of politics rose to share divergent views, with many in support of the bill emphasising the rights of Australians who live in the territories to make their own laws.
READ MORE: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/leyonhjelm-s-assisted-suicide-bill-narrowly-defeated-in-senate-20180815-p4zxps.html

TVNZ One News 16 August 2018
Family First Comment: Sir Bill also spoke about youth suicide and the “hypocrisy” the bill could create. “I’ve seen youth suicide upfront. Young people have a nose for adult hypocrisy. How can we say to them, it’s a bad thing for a young person to think about taking their life, but a great, progressive thing for a sick old person to think about taking their lives?”
Exactly
www.protect.org.nz

Submissions were heard today from Sir Bill English, Dr Mary English and advocate Matt Vickers, on the opposing views of the proposed euthanasia legalisation.

Radio NZ News 16 August 2018
The wording of proposed euthanasia legislation should be tightened to ensure it only applies to the terminally ill, members of an Australian advisory panel say.

Parliament’s justice select committee is nearing the end of a nationwide tour hearing submissions on the controversial End of Life Choice Bill.

The committee will hear from people at Parliament in Wellington today.

Laywer Julian Gardner and disability advocate Tricia Malowney were members of the Victorian Ministerial Advisory Panel which was convened before the state became the first in Australia to legalise assisted dying for the terminally ill.

Mr Gardner told Nine to Noon the Victorian law has a number of safeguards in the legislation, including that a person has the capacity to make the decision, and has an incurable disease or illness that is likely to cause death within six months, or 12 months for a neurodegenerative condition.

The New Zealand bill needed to be re-worded, he said.

“I think the intention was that it would be [for people with] a terminal condition and I think the bill would be strengthened by just clarifying that point because this is about end of life as the title of the bill suggests.”
READ MORE: https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018658341/the-path-to-assisted-dying-in-victoria

NZ Herald 7 August 2018
Family First Comment: The 11y/o had cystic fibrosis – but treatment enables people to live to their 30’s and longer.
“Everywhere else in the world, the law reflects powerful human intuitions, moral and practical: that it is wrong to abandon hope for a person so early in life, no matter the illness; that it is absurd to grant ultimate medical autonomy to someone too young to vote or legally consent to sex; and that even the best-intentioned fallible human beings should not be entrusted with such life-and-death power.”
www.rejectassistedsuicide.nz

Deliberately taking a small child’s life is unlawful everywhere in the world, even when the child is terminally ill and asks a doctor to end his or her suffering once and for all.

There is an exception to this rule: Belgium. In 2014, that country amended its law on euthanasia, already one of the most permissive in the world, authorising doctors to terminate the life of a child, at any age, who makes the request.

For a year after the law passed, no one acted on it. Now, however, euthanasia for children in Belgium is no longer just a theoretical possibility.

Between Jan. 1, 2016, and Dec. 31, 2017, Belgian physicians gave lethal injections to three children under 18, according to a July 17 report from the commission that regulates euthanasia in Belgium.

The oldest of the three was 17; in that respect, Belgium was not unique, since the Netherlands permits euthanasia for children over 12.

Belgian doctors, however, also ended the lives of a 9-year-old and an 11-year-old. These were the first under-12 cases anywhere, Luc Proot, a member of the Belgian commission, told me in an interview.
READ MORE: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12102737