Euthanasia
Euthanasia is the deliberate and intentional killing of a human being by a direct action such as lethal injection, or by the failure to perform the most basic care such as the provision of nutrition and hydration necessary to maintain life.
Euthanasia is voluntary when the person knowingly requests assistance to end his/her own life, and so it is also called assisted suicide. Medically assisted suicide is the situation where either a person is provided with the means to take his/her life or is administered a substance to induce death. In Australia, it is also commonly called “voluntary assisted dying”
Euthanasia is involuntary when one’s consent to end life is not sought or given or where the person cannot express their wishes due to immaturity, intellectual disability or physical or cognitive impairment.
Cherish Life has 12 locations throughout Queensland where pro-life people gather regularly to work on protecting life from conception until natural death.
Please look down the list for your locality, we’d love to hear from you!
QUEENSLAND
In Queensland we only have about 1/3 of the palliative care specialists that we should, this gross shortage most acutely felt in regional Queensland. Undeniably the state government’s chronic neglect of specialist palliative care, is one of the main drivers behind the push for legalisation of euthanasia in Queensland. Some people have died in pain, needlessly so.
Tragically the Queensland Labor Government legalised euthanasia and assisted suicide in October 2021.
The legislation is called the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2021. It came into effect on 1st January 2023. The criteria to qualify under the Act are:
- The person must have an eligible disease, illness or medical condition which is one that is advanced, progressive and will cause death which is expected within 12 months and is causing suffering that the person considers to be intolerable
- The person has decision -making capacity for voluntary assisted dying (VAD)
- Be acting voluntarily and without coercion
- Be at least 18 years of age
- Fulfill Australian and Queensland residency requirements
Although the full process of application will not be provided here as it is too lengthy to describe in detail, the first stage involves a first application, termed a “request” to the coordinating practitioner, an assessment, a second doctor called the consulting practitioner to perform the required second assessment, a second request and a final request. The whole process can be completed in a minimum of nine days, but a special request can be lodged to expedite this if it seems that the person could lose capacity within that time and be unable to undergo VAD.
The second stage, also called the administrative phase is where the coordinating practitioner provides a prescription for the “dying substance” to a specially appointed pharmacy established under the legislation, and a contact person for the applicant is appointed. It is then also decided if the applicant will administer the “dying substance” him/herself or have the health practitioner administer it. Under the legislation, eligible administering practitioners can be medical doctors, nurse practitioners and registered nurses.
The third phase is the disposal of the substance and the death certification. Under the legislation, the cause of death must be listed as the condition the applicant was dying from rather than the real cause of death which is euthanasia. This is made clear in Clause 8 of the legislation which states that
“For the purposes of the law of the state, and for the purposes of a contract, deed or other instrument entered into in the state or governed by the law of the state, a person who dies as a result of the self-administration or administration of a voluntary assisted dying substance in accordance with this Act:
- Does not die by suicide; and
- Is taken to have died by the disease, illness or medical condition mentioned section 10 (1) (a) from which the person suffered.
Although there is conscientious objection for individuals not to be involved, there is no provision for institutional conscientious objection on the part of hospitals, nursing homes and other places where patients may be living.
The whole process is monitored, recorded and reviewed by the Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board which is to report to the Health Minister yearly. Its first report was released in October 2023.
Overview of the VAD Review Board’s Report for 2022-2023
This report covers only the first six months of the operation of the Act. Covering the time from 1/12023-30/6/2023, the following brief facts are provided.
1.Cancer was the most common diagnosis -78%
2.Of 562 eligible applications, there were 106 self-administrations, 139 practitioner administrations and 130 deaths where the substance was not administrated (person died before it was used). There were 30 withdrawn requests.
- In all, 245 people died in the six month period.
The full report is available at https://www.health.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/1261185/vad-annual-report-2022-23.pdf
It is one of the roles of the Board to ensure that all requirements around disposal of the dying substance are enacted. As if to demonstrate the fact that so-called “safeguards” are easily flouted, sadly the husband of one of the applicants who died before the substance was administered then took the substance to cause his own death after his wife’s death as a result of a bereavement reaction.
WHY NOT EUTHANASIA?
- The Australian Medical Association is against euthanasia of any kind.
- All the peak medical advisory or representative bodies in Australia are opposed to euthanasia, and as are many around the world including the World Medical Association. In short, euthanasia legalisation is rejected by the vast majority of those on the front line of caring for the sick, elderly and disabled.
- 101 Victorian oncologists wrote against euthanasia: “Assisted suicide is in conflict with the basic ethical principles and integrity of medical practice.”
- The majority of palliative care specialists are opposed to euthanasia (see pages 34-37)
- It is a slippery slope and tragically Belgium is now euthanising children.
- It is utterly counter-productive to combating Australia’s suicide problem.
- Suicide concerns: a number of jurisdictions where assisted suicide has been legalised have recorded a marked overall increase in suicides, including non-assisted suicides, afterwards. This is because the legalisation of assisted suicide normalises all suicide, tragically. The Netherlands is one such example, after the legalisation of euthanasia there was an 110% increase in overall suicides, which included a 10% increase in non-assisted suicides.
- Euthanasia lobbyists often wrongly assert that the alternative in terminal cases is an agonising death, but the truth is that almost all pain can be mitigated or managed with good palliative care. In the very rare cases when physical pain cannot be managed adequately, palliative care specialists can use a form of light sedation to keep the dying patient comfortable, whether to allow a brief “time out” at peaks of pain, or to manage terminal symptoms.
- Euthanasia is not healthcare, it is a social demand based on fear and principals of extreme autonomy. Doctors should kill the pain, not the patient.
- Euthanasia would be open to terrible manipulation and abuse. Cases of people being “euthanised” against their will have occurred.
- Euthanasia inherently devalues human life, particularly those who are elderly, sick or disabled.
- Like abortion, instead of protecting and assisting the most vulnerable in society, euthanasia would legalise their state-sanctioned killing.
- Victoria, Australia’s euthanasia rates have been very concerning since legalisation in 2017. The Victorian Premier thought there would be 1 per month, there are on average two a week.
- Palliative care and euthanasia are not complementary, as euthanasia typically cannibalises palliative care funding and resources.
- When euthanasia was legalised in Western Australia last year, an amendment to give people in the regions the same access to palliative care as those in metropolitan areas was defeated. Similarly, since the legalisation of euthanasia in Victoria in 2017, the palliative care budget has decreased in real terms.
- Euthanasia can be the end result of economic rationalism at its worst, as it’s far cheaper to prescribe poison for people than to set up a world-class palliative care system for the ill. We can’t let governments get away with killing people to save money
DEBUNKING SOME OF THE EUTHANASIA LOBBY'S RHETORIC
Proponents of euthanasia often use the argument of autonomy.
Worse, patients who wish to continue living can still be euthanased by doctors who consider their life to be ‘not worth living.’ This is currently the practice in the Netherlands where euthanasia was legalised in 2002 on the basis that doctors were doing it anyway and therefore it needed to be controlled. Presently, one in five cases of euthanasia in the Netherlands occur without the patient’s consent. Again, the notion of ‘choice’ is an illusion.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide legislation is often framed so as to only be available to a few ‘hard cases’. These clauses are usually (and euphemistically) referred to as ‘safeguards’. But safeguards don’t work in practice — they’re an illusion.
As US lawyer and commentator, Wesley Smith points out, ‘safeguards’ are only there to make legislators (and everyone else) feel a little easier about legislating for state-sanctioned killing.
In Oregon, USA, you must be a resident in order to be eligible for euthanasia. This will be to prevent ‘suicide tourism’ from other states where euthanasia is not legal. Euthanasia activists gladly inform people that you only need to rent somewhere and have your first utility bill to meet the requirements of proof of residency … something that can be achieved in a week or two.
When pushing for the legalisation of euthanasia, activists make an emotional argument based on a clearly exceptional case of end-of-life suffering. Once legalised, however, the scope of availability can be gradually extended based on the next worst scenario.
In the Netherlands they legislated for euthanasia in 2002 with safeguards. These safeguards are almost routinely ignored with euthanasia now tolerated for newborns with a disability, for troubled teenagers, for Alzheimer’s and dementia sufferers (who cannot consent) and for those who simply feel that they’ve completed their lives and are now ‘tired of life.’ This solution of ‘last resort’ is now a common occurrence.
Pro-euthanasia activists are sharply divided into two camps. The first group seeks to achieve access to euthanasia by changes to the law. They suppress knowledge of their how-to-die classes so that they are not associated with what they perceive as the shortcomings of the second group. They do this as a means to achieve credibility (and avoid the risk of association with radicals) so that politicians will be prepared to deal with them.
The second group are those that have given up (or won’t bother) with legislation and instead go down the path of a technological solution. They are typically spearheaded by figureheads such as Dr Philip Nitschke who agreed in October 2015 to have 26 conditions attached to his medical registration in a last minute plea bargain to avoid a court case with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. These conditions included a ban on giving advice on methods of committing suicide. Nitschke has since let his medical registration lapse. Nitschke runs an assisted suicide advocacy group and publishes information on methods of ‘self deliverance.’