Letters: Safeguards around End of Life Choice Bill 'not robust'

Politicians debating the End of Life Choice Bill. Photo / File

The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill is about to go through its second reading.

This action would permanently protect endangered species and provide a refuge twice the size of New Zealand.

It should have been completed in 2017 when it was taken over from Nick Smith and transferred to David Parker. Smith was concerned that New Zealand was not pulling its weight and that other countries have all set aside significant areas of the Pacific for marine conservation.

To establish the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary is to show the world that New Zealand genuinely cares about the guardianship of our natural habitat. This is not a matter to consult with iwi or any other ethnic group but about the Government taking responsibility for its own actions in creating a magnificent marine reserve.

I urge readers to write to all political parties asking them to be accountable for all people of this country and the world and to shepherd this Bill through the House with all due urgency.
(Abridged)

RE Stephens
Papamoa Beach

Voice for life

Esther Richards in her letter to the editor on January 23, claims that the safeguards built into Act leader David Seymour's Private Member's Bill 2017 End of Life Choice are robust. I claim that they are not.

So called stringent safeguards have not worked in Belgium, the Netherlands and more recently Canada (there were 2000 assisted suicides in Belgium and 6019 in Holland last year).

Moreover the range of reasons for legalised euthanasia in the first two countries mentioned has widened, depression being one.

In 1974 Labour gave the same assurances with its legalised abortion bill.

They claimed there would be very few legalised abortions because of the robust safeguards built into the bill. Needless to say these robust safeguards have not worked and last year there were over 13,000 legal abortions in New Zealand.

Once the crack in the dam occurs, the flood follows, despite what Act's David Seymour claims. Was it not Act's first leader who introduced Rogernomics? Need I say more?
(Abridged)

Hylton Rhodes
Tauranga

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