Will our Church leaders defend the Fifth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”?

The week 13 to 19 May was hospice awareness week.

Right to Life asks our Church leaders, will they speak up in defence of the lives of our most vulnerable brothers and sisters receiving care in hospices and increasingly threatened by euthanasia and the culture of death?

Already the culture of death has infiltrated its way into our hospices, with the majority of hospices allowing their patients to be assessed on site in the hospice under the End of Life Choice Act to be killed by their doctor with a lethal injection or assisted in suicide. The Act empowers doctors to kill their patients and threatens the right to life of hospice patients.

Right to Life warns that we should learn from Canada, which amended its Medical Assisted Dying Act [MAID] in 2023, to prohibit any hospice in Canada from refusing to provide euthanasia and assisted suicide in its facility.

In 2022, 13,102 Canadians were killed by the state under MAID, an increase of 31% on the number of patients killed in 2021. 20% of these patients were killed in a hospice. Do we want our hospices to be centres of caring, or like Canada centres of killing?

Right to Life commends the Mary Potter Hospice, a Catholic hospice, and other hospices, for protecting their patients from being assessed on site in the hospice for potential euthanasia, either to be killed by their doctor with a lethal injection or assisted in suicide. This violation of human rights is done under the guise of “health care” funded by the state and authorised by parliament.

The culture of death will not compromise. First we overlook evil, then we permit evil, then we legalise evil, then we promote evil, then we celebrate evil, then we persecute those who still call it evil.

in response to a recent letter from Right to Life that was sent to all 32 hospices in New Zealand, the Chief Executive Officer of Mary Potter Hospice in Wellington, Tony Paine, advised:-

That they were committed to delivering palliative care that neither shortens or prolongs life. “That is why we do not, and will not , allow assisted dying to take place in our impatient unit”.

“With regard to assisted dying assessments it is our preference that these do not take place in our inpatient unit”.

“When a person asks us for information about assisted dying, we do what the law requires us to do and direct them to the SCENZ group”, at the Ministry of Health.

Why are all the hospices not doing this?

There were 9 responses received from hospices, A number stated that they were complying with the legislation in allowing patients to exercise their right to be assessed on site in the hospice, for eligibility to receive a lethal injection from a doctor or assisted in suicide.

Right to Life respectfully disagrees and agrees with the Mary Potter hospice that the only legal obligation is to direct enquiries to SCENZ.

Right to Life has written to the Minister of Health, the Honourable Shane Reti, asking that he include an amendment in the review of the EOLC Act, to the legislation, to prohibit the assessment of patients eligibility for receiving a lethal injection or assistance in suicide on site in a hospice, and having the killing take place in the hospice.

Right to Life also has a petition to Parliament seeking the repeal of the EOLC Act.