Voice For Life NZ
Hundreds of Kiwis were put to
death last year by a doctor, yet the ACT Party is calling
for more.
With the New Zealand Ministry of Health
releasing its Registrar Assisted Dying Annual Report
results, it revealed 486 New Zealanders died by euthanasia
and assisted suicide for the year April 2025 to March
2026.
That’s 1.29% of all deaths in New
Zealand by euthanasia.
Over the past three years there
has been a 44% increase in new applications, rising from 807
(2022/23) to 1,164 (2025/26).
Yet, being an election
year, the issue was spun into a political position for the
ACT Party to promote their Member’s Bill that has been
sitting in the ballot box undrawn for months.
MP Todd
Stephenson’s Assisted Dying Amendment Bill is positioned
to obliterate the feeble “safeguards” currently in
place, forcing all healthcare providers to allow euthanasia
on their sites, overriding all conscientious objection, and
completely breaking the promise on which the legislation was
introduced: that healthcare providers would never have to
participate in the Act.
The Bill, if passed, would
also push over the six-month terminal prognosis (which is
the only real determining factor that indicates a patient is
probably nearing death) to allow for anyone who will
eventually die of any illness to access it.
Mr Seymour
states: “Many of those people are forced to continue to
suffer intolerably because their terminal illness doesn’t
align with the calendar” – as if providing a date for
death is a solution to suffering.
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This is the same
David Seymour who told
the NZ Parliament that opponents’ claims that the law
would be expanded in the future were a “slippery slope
fallacy”.
Of course, this shift is all under
the label of “more access to healthcare” and giving
people “more autonomy”, yet totally fails to address any
lack of good healthcare treatment, palliative care, or
support.
What should be concerning is the fact
that five complaints were lodged in the last year, including
the fact a counsellor raised euthanasia with their patient
as a solution (which is illegal); that a doctor failed to
complete death report forms and only received a
“reminder” from the ministry; and a complainant raising
the issue of a total lack of support for bereaved families
in relation to assisted dying.
One complainant also
had concerns about a person in the process of euthanasia
within a facility failing to demonstrate sufficient
competence to be eligible. The Registrar reviewed the
application and confirmed it was in compliance with the
Act.
A red flag should be waving over the continued
decline in the number of health practitioners willing to be
involved in assisted suicide and euthanasia. The workforce
is shrinking as its output grows. The number of
practitioners on the Support and Consultation for End of
Life Choice (SCENZ) Group list, which connects patients with
doctors willing to assess or carry out assisted deaths, fell
from 148 in March 2023 to 121 in March 2025), while assisted
deaths per listed practitioner rose 81%, from 2.2 to 4.0 a
year.
The decrease follows international trends
in which practitioners pull out from the practice of killing
patients, leaving small numbers to conduct large caseloads.
These few practitioners are funded by the Ministry of Health
to travel around the country delivering lethal injections to
patients they have never met in person before.
This
trend also runs over into the psychiatrists on the list who
are available for patients to be referred to as a second
opinion on their competency. Their numbers fell from 13 to 3
nationwide, with none residing in the Midland or Central
regions.
A further worry is that psychiatrists are
only checking to see if patients understand the impact of
euthanasia (death), not considering why they are choosing
it, if they are being coerced, or even if they are suffering
from depression.
The ACT Party should at the very
least be calling for total reform to match international
levels of accountability and reporting, not hiding data
behind claims of ‘individual confidentiality’ and
failing to track any failings of the system that impact
people’s real choices.
It should be advocating for
the removal of this legislation out of publicly funded
healthcare—which the vast majority of palliative care
practitioners oppose—and allow complete autonomy of
businesses, organisations such as Hospice NZ, and hospitals
(along with their staff) to choose not to offer assisted
dying on the grounds of conscientious objection.
It
should be calling for proper palliative funding, so that the
1 in 5 who chose euthanasia last year who did not receive
palliative care would be guaranteed support through their
final days.
True palliative care changes people’s
choices. This was demonstrated in the report, which
mentioned occasions when a person’s request for euthanasia
led them to explore alternative care and services, such as
palliative care or additional social or wrap-around support.
As a result, they withdrew their application completely,
demonstrating the absolute need for well-funded, accessible
palliative care that truly relieves suffering.
The
true act of dignity is calling for access to palliative care
until natural death, not death via off-label chemical
injection.
The fact the ACT Party is hiding behind the
Ministry of Health’s recommended changes (of which David
Seymour is the associate minister of health) in their
Member’s Bill shows a total lack of transparency as to who
is feeding information to the ministry—like that of Dr
Jessica Young, a pro euthanasia-campaigner and researcher
funded by the Health Research Council, who boasts of having
spoken to 180 people impacted by assisted dying, receiving
$3 million of competitive funding for research, and being on
the SCENZ Group from 2021–2023. (*New Zealand
– The Association for the Study of Death and
Society)
If the ACT Party gets this Member’s
Bill through, you can expect to see a dramatic rise in those
using euthanasia. The party claims that over half the people
applying for assisted dying last year were denied, and if
the law changes, they, along with many others, will flock to
the “opportunity” of euthanasia.
But there are
many voices raising the alarm against Todd Stephenson’s
Bill, including New Zealand’s primary palliative care
providers – Hospice NZ and Voice For Life.
New
Zealanders need to make it very clear to their MPs and those
running for office this election year – they will not vote
for anyone standing for expansion and loosening of
euthanasia practices in New Zealand.
“Now is the
time to make it abundantly clear you will not vote for any
candidate running for parliament who would prefer to offer
death on demand instead of a commitment of care,” Voice
For Life national president Lydia Posthuma says.
For
more information on euthanasia and assisted suicide visit www.voiceforlife.org.nz.
Further
Registrar Assisted Dying Annual Report results:
Out
of 486 the people who died by assisted dying:
460
died by euthanasia
26 died by assisted
suicide
Clear ethnic disparity is demonstrated in
those accessing euthanasia:
81.1% were European
(despite representing 67.8% of population)
4.9% were
Maori (of 17.8% of population)
2.49% were Asian (of
17.3% of population)
0.77% were Pacific peoples (of
8.9% of population)
The location in which euthanasia
deaths took place over the reported period:
• 69.8%
took place at a private residence or another private
property
• 19.5% took place in an aged care
facility
• 7.2% took place at a hospital
•
3.5% took place in a hospice
facility.
