This article by Marcus Roberts (MercatorNet, 29 April) picks up on an NZ Herald article about the 2014 Report on the Positive Ageing Strategy, and highlights the very real risk that a change to NZ’s euthanasia laws would bring.

According to this article in the NZHerald, the Age Concern charity estimates that “between 17,000 and 25,000 older Kiwis [New Zealanders] experience some sort of abuse each year” … even worse is that about 75% of all alleged abusers are family members … predicted that rate would increase.

It’s not clear what point the author is making about NZ’s Labour Party forcing an MP to withdraw a private member bill on euthanasia before the last election. In saying it didn’t help the party at the election, he seems to be saying it doesn’t matter whether they’d kept the bill or not. In our view, the two issues are quite separate, and regardless of whether it helps a party of not, we hope that all parties refuse to support a bill which could seriously escalate the current problem of elder abuse.

However, the main point of the article is an important one, namely that if euthanasia is legalised, the abuse that elderly folk experience now, could become fatal. Well worth a read.

Source: Elder abuse rings alarm bells in New Zealand

Author: Glyn Carpenter

Glyn Carpenter was National Director of New Zealand Christian Network from March 2003 to 2017. He attends Northcote Baptist Church in Auckland, is married to Christine (married in 1981), and they have three sons – two working as doctors and one in computer science.