Every MP who votes for Euthanasia will be branded suicide enablers

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
35
30

The despicable lack of real debate over this horror Euthanasia legislation means the damned thing is facing its second reading and a huge swath of NZ MPs are quietly voting for it.

When we consider the way the State treats prisoners, beneficiaries, the mentally ill, state tenants and the poor, to pretend allowing state sanctioned suicide trump the right to life obligations of the state is a recipe for social carnage.

It will only be a matter of time before a Wellington bureaucrat asks to run an ‘information’ campaign for the terminally ill.

This will fall on the poorest the hardest.

As a Nation we have a horrific suicide rate, enabling the state to do it is jaw dropping in its cruel audacity.

Top 5 Reasons why MPs should vote “no” at its Second Reading.

1. The case has not been made that the current laws prohibiting assisted suicide and culpable homicide need to be changed.
2. Jurisdictions the world over are saying “no” to assisted suicide and euthanasia legislation.
3. The conversation about euthanasia doesn’t end if you vote “yes” to the End of Life Choice Bill at Second Reading – it gets bigger.
4. If you don’t want to see euthanasia for children or for people with disabilities, chronic conditions, mental illness, or dementia, you have to defeat this Bill.
5. The End of Life Choice Bill will never be safe, no matter how many changes are made to it.

Every MP who votes for this will be branded a suicide enabler and any time they attempt to speak on any social issue they should have their vote rammed down their throats.

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35 COMMENTS

  1. I’m against suicide completely, from my own moral point of view. It’s a dirty, harmful thing to inflict apon others in most cases.

    Some people can live with really shitty illnesses. Look at Steven Hawking.

    Only one reason I can think of where it might be OK to self sacrifice and that’s making the ultimate sacrifice for others. And I say this as some one who used to think that banning euthanasia meant that we treated animals better.

    Doctors take an oath to save lives so we shouldn’t make a law that says they might have to take a life, particularly while the system is growing more commonality with the third world every day.

    • Steven Hawking was acclaimed the world over and was still able to do the thing he loved most of all. Hardly a useful comparison.

      I’m not sure where I stand on this legislation but we need to face the fact that we’ve created a culture so appalling that people are willing to take the ultimate step and leave it – even though most of us believe there is no afterlife!

      There have been cultures in the world where suicide never happened – I can only presume they were a lot better to live in than ours.

      • So do you agree that disabled people can live full and better lives in a modern society rather than some utopian paradise where euthanasia is possible?

    • Sam: “Some people can live with really shitty illnesses. Look at Steven Hawking.”

      Stephen Hawking’s situation was singular; it would be inappropriate to use him as an exemplar of how others should live. MND is a cruel disease: it’s not for the rest of us to lecture those suffering from it as to whether they should make every effort to continue living, or take the initiative in their own death.

      “Doctors take an oath to save lives…”

      Doctors are also enjoined to refrain from doing harm; that may mean the withholding of treatment, where patients won’t necessarily benefit from a particular protocol, and may even be harmed by it. Iatrogenic disease is a significant issue in medicine, and healthcare generally.

      • Cutting edge mechanical aids is hardly the exception in a halfway decent democracy such as America, Japan or China. There’s plenty of studies that say society desires to help the sick and injured as opposed to lecturing all though society does lecture stupid people. Ok so the desire is for disabled to live full and better lives and then after a decent system is constructed for managing disabled issues, then perhaps compassion and kindness can be shown to those who will suffer unnecessary. But like going straight for a kill switch I mean nah.

  2. Sorry, no Bryan.

    My life. My decision. To be made between myself, my family, my doctor. Everyone else can butt out and eff off.

    • Infanticide is just that. Killing an infant. Abortion is removing a foetus from a woman’s womb. So if a woman takes the morning after pill is she then aborting, technically yes. If we really wanted to change things for the good we wouldn’t ‘farm’ out older people in rest homes and we would support women properly without denigrating them. But we love to solo parent bash in this country.

      Ever seen any Maori in ‘rest’ homes, no we could learn a thing or to from Maori and their reverence of older people.

      • So Michal, pro choice on abortion but not euthanasia?

        As far as the rest homes are concerned, no Maori’s you say, sounds like privilege to me.

        • I would never use the word Maoris because there isn’t such a word. You should learn a little about the language.

          I have no idea where you got the idea I was simply pro choice (assuming you are saying pro choice for women?) I have never ever believed in abortion on demand, BUT I do understand why women have abortions.

          • Thanks for the language policing. Noted, I won’t make repeat the mistake.

            I have no idea where you got the the idea that I had any idea that you were pro choice. I merely asked a question.

    • Off White: “Infanticide vs suicide.”

      Say what? Infanticide is a crime. That would be true in every jurisdiction worldwide, I’m guessing. It looks to me as if you’re drawing a false equivalence here.

  4. Jesus Christ on a wobbly stick!Here is another commentator obsessed with religion -Bryan Bruce the author of “Jesus: the cold case.”- here to tell us what he thinks about euthanasia !!!

    • Historian Pete: “Jesus Christ on a wobbly stick!”

      Nice: thanks for that! I’ll add it to my repertoire.

      “Here is another commentator obsessed with religion….”

      Yup, ‘fraid so. Objections to Seymour’s Bill are essentially religious in nature.

      I’d thank the god squad to keep their objections to themselves and allow this Bill to be passed. Nobody is forcing them to engage with the issue; neither ought they to stand in the way of the rest of us, who’d like to have some agency over the nature and timing of our deaths.

    • Pete, Bryan is not “another commentator obsessed with religion”. In fact, unless I’ve missed it, he hasn’t made a single reference to religion.

      Bryan may well be “here to tell us what he thinks about euthanasia”. But so are we. He is sharing his views with us, and vice versa.

      On this issue, Bryan and I do not hold the same belief – but I appreciate the time and effort he’s made as part of the debate.

  5. The time to look into voluntary euthanasia is a year or two after the dismantling of the neo-liberal state. If it is introduced before then it will simply be viewed as a way of making cuts in social spending.

  6. Assisted dying is quite a simple concept really; if you don’t wish partake, no-one’s going to force you to do so. The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland have each had legal assisted dying laws in some form for many years and they have all shown the “slippery-slope” argument for what it is – a myth. No amount of “grey-paper” research published by the Catholic Church or other religious organisations can change this fact.

    This is a decision to taken solely by the individual involved according to their personal circumstances and wishes, exactly the same as a woman’s right to a safe and legal abortion should she to choose have to one.

    I am not in the least bit religious and I don’t want my personal end-of-life decisions made by someone who is.

  7. All those begging for a ‘no’ vote – do you suppose you could dip your reluctant hands into the money pot and ACTUALLY, REALLY TRULY (I’d shout louder if I could) make life bearable for disabled, poor, elderly?

    A piece in a recent newspaper – care for disable people being cut back to save money.
    Another – a Maori couple let a disabled family member starve to the point of death. (It seems useful to mention the ethnicity in light of the arguments above.)
    No community care for seniors so people die at home and aren’t found for weeks or months.
    Suicide by accident – happens all the time.
    The woman in Northland who has been sent home to die, humanely (not) being kept hydrated because she is unable to eat/take in nourishment. Looked after by her mum because paliative care in this country is basically bones of the arse poor.
    (Lots of different cultures do this end of life caring. It is not unique to noble peoples, or just women.)

    Will all the sanctimonious wailing stop what is ALREADY happening? Hell no.

    The people who are missing out are those who cannot pass over because they are physically unable to use any of the usual means. Although several have refused all food and water and expired as a consequence. I’m not sure if that qualifies as a ‘good death.’ Does it? Or does it only satisfy the timid and religious?

    We sit on our keyboardy fingers and look the other way while little kids are dying of famine in Yemen, being trashed in a number of countries, being sold into hellish lives and we fret that ‘passing this law could mean death panels for a granny’.

    What really is this ‘fear’? Are your kindred so murderous and greedy as to nag you into a terminal choice? You’re still alive. Make better alternatives, surely?

  8. Well there is something very rotten in contemporary society that abortion has now “progressed” to include pregnancies that have reached full term Yes this is current reality, already in New York women cheering, along with Hillary Clinton, that “My body, My choice” extends to having a full term baby delivered whose life can be terminated POST birth, at the behest of the mother.
    Baby murder anyone? Sure. Partial birth? No problem. Baby gets injection into heart just prior, and voila..End of problem.
    Goes to show how people can easily be conditioned to accept anything.
    At the other end of the scale, legalising “assisted suicide” will eventually prove to be a convenient way to dispose of any inconvenient life. This is inevitable.
    It is is where society is headed because there are no bounderies any more. Morality and ethics are all but dead. Future young will never have heard of them.

  10. And some people have used the abortion line as justification for legal suicide…

    That’s interesting because scans under microscopes show a developing fetus that looks for all intents and purpose’s and is , – a human being, – even before it is recognizable.

    And here’s the rub :

    If I , – or you , – go and destroy a rare species of native bird’s egg / eggs such as a Kakapo or Takahe , – we are then libel to a huge fine and possibly a prison term. So what we are saying by approving abortion is that we value animal life above a human life.

    So no to abortion as well.

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