Legalise Euthanasia and Right to Die becomes Duty to Die

Letter to the editor Published in the Waikato Times April 26th.       To F O’Keefe-Jones and Jack Havill (April 26 and 27): the “slippery slope” I referred to (letter April 23) related to safeguards being ignored and/or abused and the logical ramifications that followed. The June 2011 Royal Dutch Medical Association’s guidelines widened the understanding of suffering to include non-medical issues, social factors such as loneliness, strained financial resources, and loss of social skills. End-of-life mobile visits to patients are now planned.In Oregon, assisted suicide was made legal in 1997. People requiring treatment have been offered assisted suicide instead by their insurance company. In Belgium, a paralysed woman was asked to donate her organs for transplant. “Couple euthanasia” was allowed when one was terminally ill and the other healthy. Right to die has become a duty to die.Voice for Life Inc is very concerned about the eroding of the right to life and disagrees that life’s problems are solved by killing, whether in the womb, in a rest-home or elsewhere. What message are we giving to our young people when we are trying to reduce the suicide rate? Life is the cardinal right in our society and all other rights are derived from it.We need increased palliative-care funding, not killing. Were a poll to be conducted asking whether people wanted palliative care or assisted suicide, what would be the result ?John FongSecretaryCentral Waikato BranchVoice for Life Inc