The Care Alliance urges MPs to carefully consider the multiple risks of voting through the Second Reading of the End of Life Choice Bill this Wednesday and instead vote the bill down, says Care Alliance Secretary Dr Peter Thirkell.
“The End of Life Choice Bill raises serious public safety issues for all New Zealanders, putting many lives at risk by creating new opportunities for abuse and coercion.”
“Disabled people are at risk in the Bill and they cannot simply be written out of it. Many disabled people live constantly in the shadow of terminal conditions. The real-life experience of disabled people shows that many with serious and obvious disabilities tend to be thought of by medical practitioners as having reached a final stage prematurely.”
“The proposed Bill also compels doctors to act against their long-standing ethical standard that physician assisted suicide and euthanasia remain unethical even if they were made legal. Doctors are not necessary in the regulation or practice of assisted suicide and are included only to provide a cloak of medical legitimacy.”
“Public safety and protection of the vulnerable rather than personal choice must be the paramount consideration in this Bill. Tougher safeguards may make the practice safer, but they cannot make it safe enough.”
“Parliament has a duty to ensure that the degree of safety built into legislation matches the gravity of the risk. The gravity of the risk in the euthanasia bill is wrongful death. One single wrongful death is one too many.”