By Richard McLeod of Lawyers for Vulnerable New Zealanders.

Many New Zealanders have experienced bullying or other forms of abuse in their lifetimes, particularly during their younger years. I experienced bullying during my formative years at a boys’ college.

I witnessed the physical and psychological abuse of weaker vulnerable boys, including my own brother, who had many nasty experiences there.

At times I copped it myself, either because I stood up to defend my brother or because I was his brother.

I remember the atmosphere within our school that encouraged the abuse. The bullies who harmed my brother and others easily found ways to circumnavigate school regulations, and thrived in conditions of secrecy. They also turned on those who stepped in to defend their victims.

These experiences scar and shape many of us, for better or for worse. In our case, with the love and support of his family, my brother recovered from the trauma of those years. I became a refugee and human rights lawyer, defending weak, vulnerable people against abuse at the hands of their state.

Like many of our country’s lawyers, the combination of my work and life experience has developed in me a keen awareness of how some laws, even well-intentioned ones, can be used as weapons against ordinary, weak and defenceless citizens.

On October 17, our country will vote on a law which I believe exposes the true inequalities and vulnerabilities within our society, and could slowly transform it into a bully’s playground. Promised only to those with an eligible terminal illness (for now at least), the End of Life Choice Act has been promoted under the twin imperatives of “choice” and “compassion”.

This is its core fallacy. Although privileged New Zealanders who become terminally ill may have many other choices available to them, the law will also apply to terminally ill New Zealanders who are vulnerable and weak.

That includes victims of elder abuse, neglect, loneliness and depression; cancer patients who have been denied Pharmac funding for medication that could have kept them alive for years, and Kiwis who can’t access quality palliative care because of their postcode.

For them, the “Your life your choice” mantra rings hollow. There’s no compassion in ending the life of someone who has little or no other choice.

The Act’s supporters claim there have been no abuses under euthanasia laws in those few countries that have enacted them. Not true. In Belgium and the Netherlands, euthanasia has been delivered to seriously disabled newborn infants, children, dementia patients, alcoholics and blind people, and psychiatric patients with depression or bipolar, schizophrenic or psychotic disorders.

Recently, Belgium’s euthanasia review committee was exposed by one of its own members as corrupt, for approving and covering up wrongful deaths.

In Canada, many reports of abuse and pressure of vulnerable Canadians have already surfaced, recently prompting the UN Special Rapporteur on Disabilities to issue a damning report of Canada’s euthanasia law from a disability perspective.

Canada’s first report on its euthanasia process hasn’t even tried to mask the grim reality, reporting that “loneliness and isolation” and “perceived burden on family, friends and caregivers” were some of the main sufferings of between 770 and 1800 (mostly elderly) Canadians euthanised last year.

Supporters claim that our Act has “safeguards” to protect vulnerable Kiwis from being bullied or manipulated into euthanasia. These claims are also wrong. Some 200 of my colleagues and I have identified at least 35 flaws in the Act.

These include its hopelessly inadequate and unenforceable protections against abuse and pressure, and deficient criminal immunities that will shield abusers from ever being brought to account. It provides no meaningful oversight of the euthanasia process, other than a toothless “review committee” whose work only begins after a patient is dead.

It also cloaks the euthanasia process in secrecy, thereby preventing New Zealanders from ever knowing what is truly happening.

Like a schoolyard bully, a potential abuser with a reasonable level of intelligence will easily navigate their way through or around these deficiencies and get away with it.

As seen over recent weeks, some of the Act’s supporters prefer to launch ad hominem attacks on its opponents. Those speaking up in defence of the vulnerable are vilified as bigots trying to impose their religious views on those wanting “choice”.

That many of the Act’s critics have no religious beliefs is never mentioned. Some proponents, however, seem more inclined to shoot the messenger rather than engage with their message.

My message is simple: this law is flawed and dangerous. If voted into force the Act may bring “choice” to some, but that will be at the expense of our country’s poor, weak and marginalised.

Its many deficiencies will embolden and empower the bullies in our social and familial playgrounds, through new loopholes and immunities, to prey upon the weakest and most vulnerable of our fellow citizens in secret and with impunity.

In doing so, we will have created the perfect conditions for unprecedented acts of cruelty and manipulation in our society and healthcare system in years to come.

Richard McLeod is a spokesperson for Lawyers for Vulnerable New Zealanders, a group of nearly 200 Queens Counsel, legal academics and lawyers speaking out against the End of Life Choice Act.