Voting by opinion polls dangerous

Ken Orr, Right to Life spokesman

Opinion

Martin Hanson (May 21 column) claims that legislators should vote in accordance with the public opinion polls. This is a very dangerous proposition, that we should have government by opinion polls.

He claims that 74 percent of respondents to polls in New Zealand in the past six years supported changing the law to permit doctors to kill their patients or assist in their suicide.

The polls show how ill-informed the electorate is on the implications of this dangerous End of Life Choice bill. It is dangerous to propose that our parliamentarians should subject their informed conscience to ethereal opinion polls based on misleading questions designed to obtain the results that those paying for the polls seek. Such a course would be a serious threat to our Parliamentary democracy.

Fortunately we have elected 120 MPs to thoroughly scrutinise this contentious bill through a protracted and painstaking Select Committee process.

Public opinion does not always uphold the right to life and justice. Slavery was once popular in the Southern states of the United States.

In Australia this year we have a brilliant example of how wrong polls can be in gauging public opinion. All the polls for some months predicted a strong Labor victory at the recent general election; they were totally wrong.

Westminster courageously ignored the polls that showed more than 90 percent of UK respondents to polls supported Lord Falconer’s assisted dying (AD) bill that was overwhelmingly rejected by the British Parliament in 2015, by 330 to 118

Mr Hanson claims support for AD from doctors and nurses revealed in a study published in the NZ Medical Journal in June 2017. There are more than 10,000 registered medical practitioners in New Zealand; this study actually showed the responses from only 298 doctors who bothered to complete the questionnaire, of the 969 doctors contacted. This is hardly representative of the medical profession in New Zealand.

It is a tragedy that the UK Royal College of Physicians has this year withdrawn its opposition to assisted suicide and has now adopted a neutral stance. It should be noted that 80.9 percent of palliative care doctors are opposed to AD.

It is noteworthy that more than 1000 doctors in New Zealand have signed an open letter opposing euthanasia. More than 100 lawyers in New Zealand have formed a group opposing euthanasia. The lawyers identified “35 Fatal Flaws” with the proposed bill, including that: “It poses significant risks to groups of vulnerable elderly, terminally ill, chronically ill, mentally ill and disabled New Zealanders who could find themselves potentially eligible for euthanasia and assisted suicide at a time when New Zealand’s under-funded and overburdened health system is failing to cope with meeting their needs.”

Mr Hanson, where are your 1000 doctors and 100 lawyers supporting this EOLCB?

Mr Hanson refuses to accept that all suicide is irrational. The government Suicide Prevention Strategy seeks to prevent all suicide; it does not accept that some suicide is rational.

It is interesting that Parliament’s Justice Committee could not agree on “many substantial issues” in the End of Life Choice bill, and stated that the bill “is not workable”. The select committee was unable to agree on any substantive changes to the bill which would legalise euthanasia. Parliament should vote against this unworkable bill at its second reading.

Mr Hanson supports patients being given a lethal injection surrounded by loved ones. The reality is that a patient may choose to be terminated alone without the knowledge of loved ones. Loved ones could receive a call from the hospital to arrange to collect the body after the patient has been given a lethal injection.