+ To show compassion, the laws don't need to be changed.

It is against the law to assist in someone’s suicide or to end someone else’s life, even with that person’s consent. Justice Collins found in the Lecretia Seales High Court case that these laws were very clear in their intent: there is an inviolability to human life – it may neither be thrown away nor taken away – and the law upholds this inviolability for the good of all. The breadth of these laws, covering all human life, was necessary, Collins concluded, in order to protect all people. They are in line with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The End of Life Choice Act seeks to amend these laws by inserting a kind of asterisk next to certain categories of people. For those eligible to access assisted suicide or euthanasia under the Act, the State will remove its protection of their lives in certain prescribed circumstances. For the first time in New Zealand's history, it would become legal for a doctor or nurse practitioner to end the lives of some of their patients. The main arguments in support of this proposed Act are based on giving a person control over their death and on the avoidance of possible future suffering. However, the Act fails to deliver. It offers only one option – lethal drugs – within a prescribed process and at the ultimate discretion and control of doctors, rather than the patient – without any guarantee of a suffering-free death. These arguments don’t make the case that the law which protects everyone needs to be changed. The current law and justice system can and does show great understanding and compassion. The current law maintains the standard of the inviolability of all human life and acts as a deterrent to those who would take a life or assist in a suicide for abusive or misguided motives. However, the court can exercise discretion with compassion and consider extenuating circumstances. The law has a stern face but a kind heart. The End of Life Choice Act is not a minor amendment to New Zealand's criminal law. It is a complete undermining of the basic principle that it is wrong to end a human life or to be involved in a bringing about a suicide. The current law doesn’t need to change to show compassion to those at the end of life; and those eligible for euthanasia and assisted suicide under the Act shouldn't have to lose the law’s protection over their lives.

+ Most countries who have considered these changes have rejected them.

The End of Life Choice Act does not have to pass. Most jurisdictions around the world that consider the legalisation of euthanasia and/or assisted suicide reject these law changes. In just the past 3 years, at least seven jurisdictions have considered euthanasia and/or assisted suicide bills and have defeated them or have had them withdrawn due to lack of support. For example, similar laws were voted down in the US state of Utah in January 2019, New Mexico in mid-March 2019, and Maryland in April 2019. Legislators around the world withhold their support for euthanasia and assisted suicide laws because they see the inherent dangers in licensing doctors to end life. They look to overseas jurisdictions where these practices are legal, and they decide that they don’t want to unleash in their countries and states an increasing number of euthanasia and assisted suicide deaths; extensions in the practice of the law; abuses; and the deaths of those who shouldn’t have died. They listen to those who would be most affected by the passage of a euthanasia or assisted suicide law – terminally ill people with disabilities and others who are vulnerable – and they decide that they do not want to put so many of their citizens at risk. It’s OK to say “no” to euthanasia and assisted suicide. It’s the right thing to do.

+ The End of Life Choice Act won't be the end of the risks.

The stakes in the End of Life Choice Act are high – it is literally a life-and-death issue. Don’t expect the conversations about euthanasia and assisted suicide to end if the Act passes the referendum. Expect the conversations to get longer and much more intense. Pushes for the law to be expanded beyond the carefully set parameters just debated in Parliament would come almost immediately, if the Canadian experience is anything to go by. Once it is legal for some people to choose the manner and timing of their death, others will demand the same. Borderline cases first, and then the boundaries will be pushed further and further out. The End of Life Choice Bill originally included people with "grievous and irremediable medical conditions", which would include people on the grounds of mental illness or disability alone. This clause was deleted from the Bill's final version because the Green Party didn't support it. If the End of Life Choice Act were to pass the referendum in September, we could expect the Act to be amended in the future to include this clause again.

+ Only a 'no' vote will protect children, the disabled, and those with chronic conditions, mental illness, or degenerative diseases.

Currently, there is a bright line that marks off when a human life may be intentionally taken – and that is 'never'. If the End of Life Choice Act were to pass the referendum and start to operate as law, that line would become blurred as protection would be removed from those who are eligible for euthanasia and assisted suicide. No matter the restrictions on eligibility inserted into the Act, it would be impossible to limit the people who could cross that previously bright line in the future. Even with the supposedly narrow condition relating to terminal illness, the criteria would not hold up for long. Pushes to expand the eligibility criteria would come swiftly and incessantly. Once the law has changed from a blanket prohibition against intentional killing to a law that allows it for a particular group of people under certain circumstances, there would be no logical place to draw the final line. In the Netherlands euthanasia and assisted suicide were once intended for the terminally ill. Then euthanasia was extended to newborns via the Groningen Protocol. Then it became acceptable to be euthanised for mental illness in the absence of a physical disease. And those with dementia, who could no longer consent to euthanasia, began to be euthanised. And the number of euthanasia deaths for these conditions increased. All of this expansion has occurred without the original law changing. The way that the law was applied simply changed over time. And now pushes are being made to allow euthanasia for those over the age of 70, who are simply “tired of life.” In Canada, the expansions in the categories of those eligible for euthanasia have occurred much more quickly than they did in the Netherlands. It's been only four years since the Canadian law came into effect, and the requirement for natural death to be “reasonably foreseeable” is already being done away with. Efforts to expand the law even further are making their way through the courts, with cases under way demanding euthanasia for non-terminal illness, disability, mental illness, dementia, and for children. The province of Quebec is considering changing the law to include people with mental illness. Even in the US state of Oregon, which is often held up as a jurisdiction where no extension of the law has occurred, extensions of the scope of the law have occurred in practice. At first intended for people with a terminal illness with a prognosis of six-months or less to live, the law is increasingly being applied as meaning six months or less to live without receiving medical treatment. According to official reports, assisted suicide is increasingly being accessed by people with conditions that are usually considered chronic rather than terminal, such as diabetes or musculoskeletal disorders. The law hasn’t changed, but the way it is being applied on the ground, in doctors’ offices, has nevertheless changed. Voting for the End of Life Choice Act at the referendum means accepting that the criteria in the Act will be expanded. They are likely to be expanded in doctors’ offices, in the courts, and, perhaps, one day, back in Parliament.

+ The End of Life Choice Act will not be safe.

Written safeguards cannot guarantee that there won't be wrongful deaths or abuse. This proposed Act will not be safe. No written safeguard can guarantee that someone won’t be pressured into requesting an assisted suicide or euthanasia death. Manipulation and abuse, not to mention indirect pressure, can all occur behind closed doors and remain unknown and unreported. In any abuse statistics, percentages of people suffering abuse are always understated because abuse can occur without anyone outside the relationship knowing what is really going on. No written safeguard can guarantee that doctors won’t make mistakes in diagnosis and/or prognosis for patients who might then request assisted suicide or euthanasia. Diagnosis and prognosis (how long a person is expected to live if a condition takes its course) are based on probability, not certainty. What if someone is told they have terminal cancer, and they are administered euthanasia, but it is later discovered the diagnosis was wrong, and they were not, in fact, terminal? Or if someone is told they have only a few months to live, and they access assisted suicide, but they could have lived for several more years? No written safeguard can halt the changes to and expectations of society once euthanasia and assisted suicide are made legal. Currently, it is universally accepted that sick, disabled and elderly people are cared for until their natural death. The availability of assisted dying as a legal option would make staying alive optional, instead of the default position we have at the moment. Those who are eligible for assisted suicide and euthanasia could begin to feel that they now have to justify to themselves and to others why they’re putting the health system to the expense of keeping them alive, and why they’re putting their family and caregivers through the burden of caring for them. Vulnerable people could feel pressure from society to end their lives. New Zealand outlawed the death penalty on the grounds that even one wrongful death would be too many. The death penalty had many safeguards built into it, including jury trials and several rounds of judicial appeal, and yet, wrongful deaths could still occur. It was decided the State should not be involved in intentionally ending human life. No law or policy is ever perfect – they all have unintended consequences, some of which prove to be detrimental to some members of society. But no other law or policy involves the State sanctioning someone’s death at the hand of another person. Unintended consequences in education policy may mean that some children don’t get the education they deserve, or that some teachers don’t have the resources they need to teach effectively – these are certainly negative consequences, but they are nevertheless fixable. Unintended consequences in euthanasia policy may the loss of a life which should have been protected. This situation can never be rectified – for that vulnerable person, it would simply be too late.