Assisted suicide
Assisted suicide is as old as humanity; it is not a modern phenomenon and the controversies around it are not new. The Hippocratic Oath, written by the “father of medicine”, the Greek physician Hippocrates, and sworn to by new physicians for the past 2,400 years, specifically states, “I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan”. This was written because the temptation has always existed to end life when it is seemingly unbearable.
Assisted suicide is defined as “being furnished with the means to die painlessly, either by drugs or specific equipment”. Recently the press reported a dual suicide by a renowned British symphony conductor and his wife. In that case only the wife was suffering from terminal illness, but the husband did not want to live without her so they both chose death.
They were legally assisted to die painlessly together by injection, surrounded by their children in a Swiss clinic called Dignitas. Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, told Time magazine that business is so good that he now intends to open a chain of suicide clinics to meet the needs of British depressives, in addition to the terminally ill from all over Europe. “We never say no to anyone,” he explained. So much for the concept of death with dignity.
The way suicide advocates see it is that everyone should be allowed to decide when and where his or her life ends, as long as there is a framework of safeguards to protect people who do not want to die. In some jurisdictions aid in dying is legal while suicide, whether assisted or not, is illegal. In May this year the Dying with Dignity Bill 2009 was introduced by the Greens into the Tasmanian Parliament. That bill would make it legal for terminally ill people to choose to die with medical assistance.
Tasmanian church leaders naturally expressed their opposition to the bill. The Anglican Bishop, John Harrower, condemned the bill and encouraged members of Parliament to vote against it. He said: Only God has the right to take life. Going down the pathway of euthanasia is literally a way to death, not to life for our society—and it will bring great harm.
The Catholic Church has also lobbied against the legislation. But what do ordinary people think? A recent phone survey of 1,000 Tasmanians revealed that many people point out that we do not let our beloved animals suffer when they are ill, but take them to the vet to be put out of their misery. So why, they ask, can we not extend such kindness to human beings, and put them out of their misery?
The position of the mainstream Christian denominations is that they remain totally committed to the principle of the sanctity of human life and to the provision of the best palliative care for the terminally ill. They believe that modern medical science can, in the majority of cases, adequately manage pain through palliative care and medication. In the small number of cases, estimated to be less than 5 per cent where pain is only partly alleviated, renewed efforts must go into devising better treatment and palliative care.
It is now more than 30 years since I set up, in another life, a palliative care centre both home based and hospital based. My particular concern is always for the vulnerable aged as well as the disabled of all ages. Because the profound fear of being a burden upon others is a major risk for suicide, assisted suicide must not be offered as an easy option. If assisted suicide were to be legalised there would be unbearable emotional, psychological and social pressure for so-called socially useless people to allow themselves to be killed, so that the resources they are using up could be used instead for the able bodied.
There are already too many cases of elder abuse, by the young or by unscrupulous lawyers or financial advisors trying to get hold of older people’s property and money. Imagine the pressure that could be used by those same people against an old person dependent upon them! The vulnerable person could be methodically and relentlessly cajoled, threatened or tricked into signing the request form for assisted suicide.
Last month, the party that I represent in this House, Family First, plus others were successful in defeating a similar bill in the South Australian Parliament. There is always one such bill coming up in the Western Australian Parliament. I place on record that I will commit myself, along with others in this House, to oppose euthanasia in New South Wales if and when it is again brought before us. I believe that we must be always compassionate by protecting the vulnerable, and that that is our duty: to protect and support them not to lead them into death.
