Donnelly is a medical specialist with extensive experience of palliative care and dying people in four countries, and a Senior Lecturer at Otago University Wellington debated Seymour a politician, and campaigner for the End of Life Choice Act.

With deep feeling, Dr Donnelly stated her view and that of many other medical professionals that the End of Life Choice Act is an unsafe and ‘dangerous' law, which could imperil the lives of thousands of vulnerable people every year.

She referred to how many doctors see the Act as entirely ineffective in safeguarding against ‘coercion', which is impossible to detect, as it is often an internalisation of felt external pressures and suggestions.

Mr Seymour responded asserted that the safeguards were ‘rigorous', but unconvincingly.

What was especially shocking about the interview was that Mr Seymour accused Dr Donnelly of ‘just making up false objections' in ‘an attempt to mislead', and that she should just come out and honestly admit that her objections to euthanasia are all based on her religious views.

This accusation was obviously deeply offensive to Dr Donnelly.

She replied that her objections were entirely based on her clinical experience and the views of many others doctors and lawyers that the Act was very unsafe.

She also said that Mr Seymour's accusation was ‘disgraceful sectarian comment' and ‘bigotry at its utmost'.

A week or so earlier, Mr Seymour had taken a similar approach in his response to a statement of the Catholic Bishops. Instead of addressing their points about the lack of strong safeguards in the Act, he said that the bishops ‘may have a philosophical view that life belongs to God', but ‘they don't have the right to force it on others'.

He added that that ‘if the bishops want their freedoms respected, they need to engage in honest debate that respects others have difference choices from theirs'.

Again, the implication was that religious people are being dishonest in the reasons they give for opposing the End of Life Choice Act, and that their criticisms should be disregarded.

So is it true that it is only ‘religious' people who oppose the End of Life Choice Act?

No, clearly not.

Is it true that many ‘religious' people do oppose it? Yes.

Is their objection on ‘religious' grounds? To a significant extent, yes: ‘religious' people have very high regard for the God-given value of human life, and many of them prioritise the care of vulnerable people over their own individual freedoms.

Should ‘religious' people be free to hold and articulate their views publically? Absolutely yes.

Are ‘religious' people somehow being deceitful or scaremongering in exposing the weaknesses and dangers in this Act? No, these are entirely valid critiques.

Are ‘religious' people seeking to impose their own personal ‘religious' morality on society? No, they are making a legitimate ethical case that this Act is not safe for society in the long run, especially for society's old, sick, frail, and disabled; the care of society's vulnerable is certainly a moral issue, and all members of society depend on that for our own safety.

Is a society that dismisses ‘religious' viewpoints going to be safe for anyone? We think not.

• Rev Dr Stuart Lange, is a historian and Senior Research Fellow School of Theology at Laidlaw College. He currently serves as National Director, New Zealand Christian Network.

Watch David Seymour's performance.

In an interview on Magic Talk on Monday National Party Leader, Judith Collins, seemed to blur the line between managing pain and a deliberate choice for a person to end their life.

Asked how she reconciled her Christianity with support for decriminalising abortion and making euthanasia legal, Collins said "... I've seen my father with a whole dose of morphine put in him in the hospital that he was in. I tell you what, that was a lot better than watching my sister-in-law basically starve to death," Collins told Magic Talk.

However Palliative Care Speciality, Sinead Donnelly says there's a clear distinction between administering morphine for pain and deliberately terminating a life.

"Morphine is used legally and appropriately every day to relieve a patient's pain and shortness of breath, but not to terminate a life", Donnelly told CathNews.

Legitimising what we think has been the practice for many years is not what the End of Life Choice Act about, she says.

"This euthanasia Act will be legalising the use of agents like phenobarbitone and propofol at high doses to end people's lives.

"The use of these agents carries with them the intention of ending someone's life not the relief of their symptoms", she said.

Studies have shown that patients live longer when morphine is used appropriately and carefully to relieve pain.

Often families think that morphine led to the patient's death when actually the patient is actively dying, morphine is given to relieve their pain and the patient coincidentally dies, Donnelly says.

This is vastly different to a medical practitioner or nurse giving a patient high doses of phenobarbitone and propofol with the intention of ending their life, she says.

We do not need to vote for giving people Morphine to relieve their pain, it is already legal.

This vote is about something completely different, it has a different intent. This euthanasia referendum is about a deliberate act to end a person's life early.

In a recent discussion on NewTalkZB, Hospice NZ clinical director Rod Macleod and Wellington GP labelled the euthanasia Act poor law.

English said the law was "very weak", noting the absence of a requirement for a patient to consult their family or friends about their decision to request an assisted death.

Under this law an 18 year old could request to be euthanased, English said.

"And the first those parents might get to know about this is if they get a phone call or a death certificate coming to them. And that's something that no parent wants."

English and Macleod voiced concern that if the vote passed, New Zealand like other countries will broaden their laws, for example in Canada euthanasia could be made available to non-terminal patients.

Dr John Bonning, an emergency medicine specialist from Waikato Hospital defended the euthanasia Act.

"They're allowed to vote, they're allowed to go to war, they're allowed to make their own choices", Bonning said.

Sources

• Newshub
• 1 News
• NZ Herald