Recent News

World Medical Association 26 October 2019
Family First Comment: ‘The WMA reiterates its strong commitment to the principles of medical ethics and that utmost respect has to be maintained for human life. Therefore, the WMA is firmly opposed to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide… No physician should be forced to participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide, nor should any physician be obliged to make referral decisions to this end.’

The World Medical Association has reaffirmed its long-standing policy of opposition to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.

After an intensive process of consultation with physicians and non physicians around the world, the WMA at its annual Assembly in Tbilisi, Georgia, adopted a revised Declaration on Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide.

This states: ‘The WMA reiterates its strong commitment to the principles of medical ethics and that utmost respect has to be maintained for human life. Therefore, the WMA is firmly opposed to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.’

It adds: ‘No physician should be forced to participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide, nor should any physician be obliged to make referral decisions to this end.’

The Declaration says: ‘Separately, the physician who respects the basic right of the patient to decline medical treatment does not act unethically in forgoing or withholding unwanted care, even if respecting such a wish results in the death of the patient.’

The revised Declaration defines euthanasia as ‘a physician deliberately administering a lethal substance or carrying out an intervention to cause the death of a patient with decision-making capacity at the patient’s own voluntary request.’

It says that physician-assisted suicide ‘refers to cases in which, at the voluntary request of a patient with decision-making capacity, a physician deliberately enables a patient to end his or her own life by prescribing or providing medical substances with the intent to bring about death.’

WMA Chair Dr. Frank Ulrich Montgomery said: ‘Having held consultative conferences involving every continent in the world, we believe that this revised wording is in accord with the views of most physicians worldwide.’
https://www.wma.net/news-post/world-medical-association-reaffirms-opposition-to-euthanasia-and-physician-assisted-suicide/

Stuff co.nz 21 October 2019|
Family First Comment: “Conservative lobby groups such as Family First already have plenty to do campaigning against abortion law reform and the cannabis referendum pinned to go with the 2020 election. Add in a referendum on euthanasia and there would be quite a cocktail of policies to campaign and fundraise with. 
The Government would be coming for your babies, your grandma, and to give your kids legal weed.” 
That’s a great slogan!! Thanks guys 👍😄

ANALYSIS: The prime minister has said several times that she doesn’t think there should be a referendum on euthanasia.

But she could well vote for one on Wednesday. Here’s why.

Jacinda Ardern has supported the End of Life Choice Bill every step of the way, and voted with bill sponsor David Seymour on all of his varied amendments thus far – all of which are aimed at getting it to pass.

Now, with the referendum vote looming – under which the law would be dependent on the public endorsing it – Ardern has left open the option of voting for a referendum which she has previously be wary of, if that’s what is needed for the bill to pass.

Ardern is of course only one vote of 120. Because euthanasia is a conscience matter for Labour and National, the leaders’ votes technically don’t count any more than the lowliest of backbenchers’.

But her vote will likely be influential on other MPs on the fence, which could be crucial. It’s much easier to make a hard decision when you know your leader has made the exact same call. Several other Labour MPs could go all the way from yes to no without much trouble.

Seymour desperately needs to pass the referendum amendment on Wednesday to pass the bill itself in a few weeks’ time. This is because of a deal he made with NZ First early in the process: if he got a referendum included, all nine NZ First MPs would stay onboard through all three readings.

If the referendum amendment fails, it’s not clear that every NZ First MP would vote against the bill (opinions clearly differ within the party), but most would.
READ MORE: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/116752897/what-labour-will-worry-about-with-a-euthanasia-referendum?cid=app-iPhone

NewsTalk ZB 17 October 2019
Family First Comment: So many great points made in this interview…. 
“The long and short of it is anywhere from 70 to 75 per cent of people who are actually killed, so called euthanised, in countries where it is legal are the elderly and  the poor.”  
“When we talk to the elderly and the poor about why they wish to be killed or euthanised, they say they have become a burden on their families and on society, so is it really a choice.”  
The research found that suicide rates have increased between five and 15-percent in countries where euthanasia is legal. 
#rejectassistedsuicide

A professor says that legalising euthanasia has been devastating on the elderly, poor and disabled.

Otago University doctors have reviewed the laws, practices and modifications in countries where it’s been introduced.

Old Age Psychiatry associate professor Yoram Barak says our public debate isn’t well informed.

He’s calling on psychiatrists to say ‘no’ to euthanasia.

“The long and short of it is anywhere from 70 to 75 per cent of people who are actually killed, so called euthanised, in countries where it is legal are the elderly and  the poor.”

Barak says the debate centres on choice, rights and dignity, but euthanasia becomes discriminatory.

He says ignoring history means we’d be killing people without options.

“When we talk to the elderly and the poor about why they wish to be killed or euthanised, they say they have become a burden on their families and on society, so it is really a choice.”

He says the Dutch government’s considering extending euthanasia to anyone over 70 years old who feel they’ve fulfilled their role in life.

The research found that suicide rates have increased between five and 15-percent in countries where euthanasia is legal.
READ MORE: https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/audio/yoram-barak-psychiatry-professor-criticises-euthanasia-calls-it-discriminatory-and-contradictory/

BioEdge 13 October 2019
Family First Comment: The National Council on Disability (NCD) has released a scathing analysis of the effect of assisted suicide laws in the United States on people with disabilities. It finds that safeguards are ineffective and that there is little oversight of abuses and mistakes…. The most prevalent reasons offered by someone requesting assisted suicide are directly related to unmet service and support needs. These should be dealt with through new laws and more funding, says NCD, not assisted suicide. “Assisted suicide laws are premised on the notion of additional choice for people at the end of their lives, however in practice, they often remove choices when the low-cost option is ending one’s life versus providing treatments to lengthen it or services and supports to improve it.” 

The National Council on Disability (NCD) has released a scathing analysis of the effect of assisted suicide laws in the United States on people with disabilities. It finds that safeguards are ineffective and that there is little oversight of abuses and mistakes.

In eight states and the District of Columbia it is legal for doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to patients diagnosed with terminal illness and with a prognosis of six months or less to live, if certain procedural steps are followed.

Pain relief is often described as the primary motivation for seeking assisted suicide. In its report, Assisted Suicide Laws and their Danger to People with Disabilities, NCD responds that the most prevalent reasons offered by someone requesting assisted suicide are directly related to unmet service and support needs. These should be dealt with through new laws and more funding, says NCD, not assisted suicide.

“Assisted suicide laws are premised on the notion of additional choice for people at the end of their lives, however in practice, they often remove choices when the low-cost option is ending one’s life versus providing treatments to lengthen it or services and supports to improve it,” said NCD Chairman Neil Romano.

Closely examining the experience in Oregon, where the practice has been legal for 20 years, NCD found that the list of conditions eligible for assisted suicide has expanded considerably over time, including many disabilities that, when properly treated, do not result in death, including arthritis, diabetes, and kidney failure.

Assisted Suicide Laws and their Danger to People with Disabilities also notes suicide contagion in states where assisted suicide is legal; as well as a loosening of existing safeguards both in states with legalized assisted suicide and states considering bills to legalize.
READ MORE: https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/us-study-saysassisted-suicide-laws-rife-with-dangers-to-people-with-disabil/13245

Montreal CTV News 11 September 2019
Family First Comment:This is the slippery slope. The bill being debated by our Parliament at the moment is simply the ‘foot in the door’ – as evidenced by overseas experience.
“A Quebec Superior Court judge has invalidated sections of both the laws on medically assisted dying, ruling Wednesday they were too restrictive and therefore unconstitutional.”
#rejectassistedsuicide

A Quebec Superior Court judge has invalidated sections of both the federal and Quebec laws on medically assisted dying, ruling Wednesday they were too restrictive and therefore unconstitutional.

Justice Christine Baudouin found in favour of two Quebecers struck by incurable degenerative diseases who’d argued they were denied a medically assisted death under laws that are discriminatory.

Baudouin ruled invalid the Criminal Code requirement that a natural death be “reasonably foreseeable” before someone can be eligible for assisted death. The condition has prevented some people from accessing the end-of-life procedure. She also invalidated a section of the Quebec law that says people must “be at the end of life.”

Baudouin suspended application of the judgment for six months to give federal and provincial legislators a chance to modify the laws.

But the court granted an exemption to Truchon and Gladu, allowing them to seek medical aid in dying during this period if they satisfy other conditions in the law.

The laws in place deprived them of the right to have “a dignified and serene death”, she wrote in her lengthy decision.

Baudouin, who heard from witnesses in January, agreed the rules governing who was entitled to medical assistance in dying were too restrictive and discriminatory.
READ MORE: https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/a-quebec-court-has-invalidated-parts-of-the-medical-aid-in-dying-laws-1.4588622

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DailyWire 12 September 2019
Family First Comment: In 2017, 83 people with mental illness were killed in the country, as noted by National Review. “The Dutch plunge into the euthanasia moral abyss continues to accelerate, with the number of patients killed by doctors exceeding 6,000 in 2017. That’s more than 500 a month, 100 a week, and 15 a day,” the outlet reported in March 2018. “Demonstrating the consequences of accepting the premise that eliminating suffering justifies eliminating the sufferer, Dutch psychiatrists killed 83 of their mentally ill patients in 2017 — up from twelve in 2012 and 43 in 2014.”
#protect.org.nz

Three years ago, a 74-year-old Dutch woman with dementia was euthanized by a doctor who drugged the patient’s coffee without her knowledge and then had family members physically restrain her for the final lethal injection.

The doctor, who has not been publicly named, was cleared of all wrongdoing by a court in the Netherlands on Wednesday, “clarifying” the country’s euthanasia law enacted in 2002 in relation to patients with “severe dementia,” according to MedicalXPress.

Patients with dementia can now be killed by their doctors even if they strongly object to euthanasia at the time, so long as they have previously given consent for the fatal procedure. In other words, if a patient were to change their mind about the assisted suicide, a doctor could still legally kill them against their will. “The court ruled that in rare cases of euthanasia that were being performed on patients with severe dementia — and who had earlier made a written request for euthanasia — the doctor ‘did not have to verify the current desire to die,'” MedicalXPress reported.

And in the case of this specific Dutch woman with dementia, she never once gave an express request to be euthanized. In her will, which was renewed about a year before her death, the woman said she would like to be euthanized “whenever I think the time is right.” And when she was asked if she wanted to be euthanized, she reiterated multiple times that her suffering was not bad enough to where she wanted to be killed:

“The 74-year-old woman had renewed her living will about a year before she died, writing that she wanted to be euthanized ‘whenever I think the time is right.’ Later, the patient said several times in response to being asked if she wanted to die: ‘But not just now, it’s not so bad yet!’ according to a report from the Dutch regional euthanasia review committee.”

She was killed, anyway.

Part of the rationale for clearing the doctor of drugging the patient’s coffee without her knowledge and killing her while she was being physically restrained against her will was in part, according to the court verdict, because “the patient no longer recognized her own reflection in the mirror,” the MedicalXPress report said.

In 2017, 83 people with mental illness were killed in the country, as noted by National Review.

“The Dutch plunge into the euthanasia moral abyss continues to accelerate, with the number of patients killed by doctors exceeding 6,000 in 2017. That’s more than 500 a month, 100 a week, and 15 a day,” the outlet reported in March 2018. “Demonstrating the consequences of accepting the premise that eliminating suffering justifies eliminating the sufferer, Dutch psychiatrists killed 83 of their mentally ill patients in 2017 — up from twelve in 2012 and 43 in 2014.”
READ MORE: https://www.dailywire.com/news/51688/dutch-woman-euthanized-against-her-will-doctor-was-amanda-prestigiacomo

Q&A TVNZ – 9 Sep 2019
Euthanasia has been legal in the Netherlands since 2002 we interview Dr Theo Boer from the Theological University. Professor Boer speaks from his experience of examining 4,000 euthanasia cases in the Netherlands over a period of 10 years as part of a regional euthanasia review committee.
WATCH NOW: https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/q-and-a/clips/q-a-with-dr-theo-boer

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NZ Herald 24 August 2019
Cat activists are desperately forking out tens of thousands of dollars to desex and microchip strays as the number of cats euthanised under Auckland’s contentious new pest management plan hits 88.

The culling of cats found without microchips in “ecologically sensitive areas” of the Auckland region was a controversial component of Auckland Council’s 2019 Regional Pest Management Strategy (RPMS), which officially took effect in March.

Animal activists had repeatedly objected during RPMS’ 12-month consultation period that unchipped domestic cats were at risk of being rounded up in the hundreds of “ecologically sensitive areas” scattered across the Auckland Region.

Whether justified or not, such fears have activists personally housing more than 10 cats at time and reportedly spending up to $100,000 of their own money on desexing and medical costs.

Despite figures on the number of cats culled in 2018 not being available, Auckland Council’s biosecurity principal advisor Dr Imogen Bassett says the 88 euthanised feral cat number is not actually a reflection of the new RPMS that is “not yet operative”.

“We don’t expect a huge change in the number of cats being euthanised under the new plan compared to the old one,” Dr Bassett told the Herald.
READ MORE: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?objectid=12260599&ref=twitter

TVNZ One News 21 August 2019
Family First Comment: “The safeguards in the bill, although there have been some attempts to improve them, still don’t go far enough in my view, particularly around the assessment of who is competent and secondly around coercion.”
Exactly.
Kill the bill.

NZ Herald 16 August 2019
Family First Comment: “Organisations were also worried that without further protections, those who didn’t want to participate would be at risk of coming under pressure to provide euthanasia services or lose public contracts,”
#coercion

Hospices say they want more protections to ensure their facilities won’t be used for assisted dying if euthanasia legislation makes it through Parliament.

But the politician behind the bill, Act Leader David Seymour, says there’s no problem to be fixed.

The End of Life Choice Bill passed its second reading 70 votes to 50 in June and is now going through a series of debates about what changes are needed before it’s voted on for a final time.

The bill allows terminally ill adults with less than six months to live to request assisted dying and let’s doctors opt out of any part of the process.

National Party MP Michael Woodhouse, who opposes the legislation, has now proposed an amendment that would let hospices, aged-care facilities and faith-based providers to be able to say they didn’t want anyone to be able to provide assisted dying on their premises.

“There is no legal prohibition on the ability of a doctor practicing autonomously with a resident in a rest home to offer assisted dying services inside their facility,” he said.

Organisations were also worried that without further protections, those who didn’t want to participate would be at risk of coming under pressure to provide euthanasia services or lose public contracts,” he said.

Hospice New Zealand chair Richard Thurlow said assisted dying went against the character of the providers and their basic beliefs of neither hastening nor postponing death.
READ MORE: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?objectid=12258952&ref=twitter  (behind paywall)