There
is much misunderstanding, sometimes mischievously created, about
the meaning of euthanasia and voluntary euthanasia.
The original meaning of the word "euthanasia" was simply "a
good death". Over the years however the meaning has been extended
to take in what is sometimes referred to as "mercy killing".
The recent Victorian Supreme Court case of BWV, who was in an
incurably deep coma being kept alive by means of a tube into
her stomach, was a euthanasia "mercy killing" type case. Her
life was ended as a result of a court order made from the most
compassionate of reasons. If there had not been a Victorian
Medical Treatment Statute that permitted that court order to
be made, it could not legally have been done. And any ending
of BWV's life could, as a matter of law, have been murder.
Euthanasia and voluntary euthanasia, VE, are not the same thing.
VE is different from euthanasia. It is more like suicide.
Suicide and attempted suicide are no longer crimes in Australia
but VE, like euthanasia, unless there is a special statutory
law to permit it, and there are no such laws in Australia, is
illegal. It cannot occur without a serious crime having been
committed.
If VE were permitted, it would permit a competent, adult person,
seriously and incurably ill and suffering pain and distress,
to ask and be given medical help so that his or her life could
be ended and so free them from that pain and suffering, and
permit that medical helper, if that person agreed, to give them
the help needed, or if necessary do what had to be done for
them.
Asking for that kind of help is not a crime. It is the giving
of help or the doing of what has been asked to be done that
is the crime.
Depending on the circumstances, the giving of such help could
be the crime of 'aiding or abetting' or of 'inciting' or 'counselling'
a suicide. If the helper did what was asked to be done it would
probably be murder.
Let me tell you why I regard myself as qualified to talk about
such matters and also to inform you of some of my prejudices.
First, I am an atheist and I have no belief in an after life.
Second, someone once said "old age is not for the faint hearted".
I am nearing the end of what has been an extraordinary good
and happy life. I don't want it to end, but old age can bring
on serious physical and mental problems. If I ever have reason
to believe that the quality of my life was going to worsen and
become bad, I would see it as my right to find a way to end
it, rather than have it drag on.
If I ever were to do that however, without being incurably ill,
I would not be a VE type case. Mine would be more a rational
suicide type case, a type that does not happen anywhere near
as often as the relatively common, ordinary emotional crisis
type suicide case.
Also, during my life, I have had experience of a more than usual
number of suicides and attempted suicides.
A result has been that I have immersed myself in the enormous
mass of literature written for and against suicide.
Supporters of VE believe that in the circumstances I have described,
where there is an incurable illness with associated incurable
pain and suffering, that a freely made request by someone to
be allowed to have their life ended, should be permitted and
be complied with, and that with proper statutory safeguards,
the criminality of complying with the request should be abolished.
In other words, that there should be a right to die.
Although euthanasia and VE are crimes, it doesn't mean that
they do not happen; they do. They occur underground, surreptitiously.
The idea of fundamental human rights is an important contribution
to human progress. It is a secular, humanist, concept, designed
to protect and improve the value and quality of human life.
The most important human right of all of course is the right
to life itself. It is the basis on which all the other rights
depend.
The human right that I am talking about today, a right to die,
is a corollary of that right to life.
Where life has no further meaning because of some incurable,
painful terminal illness, where life turns into a living suffering
death, there should be a right to bring that life to an end
by having a right to die.
A consequence of not having that right to die is that many who
want to die endure long, painful and distressing periods of
degeneration. They become totally dependent on others, often
loving members of their family, usually a husband or wife or
son or daughter, with problems of their own, before they are
forced to die in the most miserable of circumstances.
The most common types of suicide are a consequence of some emotional,
personal crisis that eventually passes, and they are essentially
irrational.
VE type suicides, on the other hand, are rational, and as I
have said, much less frequent. They result from a rationally
thought out desire to escape the pain and suffering associated
with an ongoing, incurable illness, something that is not going
to pass.
Suicide and attempted suicide are no longer crimes in Australia.
They were abrogated as crimes in New South Wales, for example
in 1983.
They became crimes in the first place because religious teaching
taught us that they violated the sixth commandment: "You shall
not kill", not even yourself. Religion taught us that it was
God's prerogative to decide how and when one should die.
When they were abrogated as crimes in New South Wales, a new
statutory crime was created which made it a crime to 'aid or
abet' or 'incite' or 'counsel' a suicide or an attempted suicide.
The laws in our various States and Territories, although not
identical, are basically the same.
Those terms, however, 'aid or abet' and 'incite or counsel'
are very uncertain, and that uncertainty can cause great distress.
About a year and a half ago, a 70-year-old Queenslander, Nancy
Crick, ended her life after having gathered some friends and
sympathisers around her in order to say Goodbye. Those friends
later went to the police and told them what had happened. Eighteen
months later they still don't know whether they are going to
be charged with "aiding or abetting", "counselling" or "inciting"
her suicide or not.
There is a book, a bestseller, entitled "Final Exit", written
by an American, a Dr Derek Humphrey, which describes some of
the ways you can kill yourself. As a bestseller, it points strongly
to a perhaps latent public demand that VE should be permitted.
Other evidence of public demand can be found in the success
of Dr Philip Nitschke's voluntary euthanasia clinics and workshops
that go around Australia attracting ever growing numbers of
people, usually elderly, who want to know more about how best
to end their lives, should they ever want to do so.
Public opinion polls are very supportive of VE. In February
2003, the Queensland Sunday Mail newspaper ran a poll with a
question: Do you support voluntary euthanasia? 62.4% who answered
said Yes.
One of the reasons demand for VE is becoming greater is that
more and more of us are living into old age with the inevitable
physical and mental health problems that come with it.
Statisticians tell us that the number of Australians over 65
will increase more rapidly in the next few years than it has
in the recent past; that the number will double in the next
20 years, and that by the 2050s, people over 65 will make up
a third of Australia's population.
The figures relating to those over 85 are even more striking.
Within the next 20 years, their number will treble; we will
have close to 2 million Australians over 85 in 2051.
Although great improvements have been made in palliative care
and pain relief, they can only go so far. For many, quality
of life can become more important than life itself.
The brutal, inescapable truth is that modern medicine and modern
systems of sanitation are keeping some people alive longer than
they wish.
Australia's Northern Territory was the first part of the world
to legalise voluntary euthanasia with its very compassionate
and humane Rights of the Terminally Ill Statute in 1996.
That Statute spelled out very carefully the circumstances in
which VE could legally happen in the Northern Territory. It
created a statutory regime in which a request had first to come
from a competent adult suffering from an incurable, terminal
illness which was causing severe pain or suffering. A medical
practitioner had to examine the person concerned and advise
him or her about the likely course of the illness, the available
medical treatment, palliative care, counselling and psychiatric
support that was available.
After being so advised the person then had to indicate a desire
to put an end to their suffering by ending their life. There
had then to be a mandatory seven days 'cooling off' period.
After the seven days and the satisfactory fulfilment of other
safeguards and the obtaining of a second medical opinion confirming
the diagnosis and the prognosis, and the obtaining of a psychiatric
opinion to the same effect, a second and more formalised certificate
of request had to be given. There then had to be a second cooling
off period of another 48 hours, and it was only after that,
that the matter could go ahead. The requesting person could
either do the act themselves or find a doctor who was willing
to do it for them.
In 1997, however, the Federal Parliament, using its constitutional
power over Territories, enacted a Euthanasia Laws Act that nullified
the Northern Territory law.
The nullifying Act did more than just nullify the Northern Territory
Law.
In an extraordinary act of discrimination against Australians
living in our Territories, the nullifying law took away from
the Parliaments of the Territories, mainly the Northern Territory
and the ACT, the power they previously had, and which our States
still have, to make laws that would permit VE. That Federal
Statute thus treats Territorians as second-class citizens. It
implants church dogma into Australia's constitutional arrangements
and takes away from Territorians a right enjoyed by all other
Australians. It should be repealed.
Since 1997, other parts of the world have followed the lead
of the Northern Territory and passed laws that permit VE. The
Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland the State of Oregon in the
United States of America, all now permit VE. The situations
in which it is permitted differ: some are more liberal than
others. In one form or another, other countries will certainly
follow.
Championing voluntary euthanasia in Australia from a secular,
humanistic and rationalistic point of view, are the various
State and regional voluntary euthanasia societies working in
co-operation with Final Exit Australia, an organisation led
by Dr Nitschke.
Championing the opposition to VE are the churches, particularly
the Roman Catholic Church, and organisations known as Right
to Life Associations.
The voluntary euthanasia societies are puny in influence and
power compared to the church and the Right to Life organisations,
but if our concept of progress is to mean anything, they must
eventually succeed.
VE being a crime can produce other cruel consequences.
As I have said, a person wanting to die can live on in pain
and discomfort for years, wanting and asking to die, until eventually
a loving carer either finds a way of helping them do what has
to be done, or of doing it for them.
I know of several such cases where the ongoing pressure and
strain placed on all concerned has been very, very cruel. Research
shows that nearly a third of persons who have helped a loved
one die, often elderly persons with health problems of their
own, end up committing suicide themselves.
Such cruelties would not occur if VE was legalised.
Not long ago, the Leader of the Government in the Upper House
of the Parliament of Western Australia, Mr Kim Chance, said,
'We don't withhold the kindness of death from an animal that
is suffering. I don't see why we should withhold it from a human
being.
I can't improve on that. Mr Chance has said it all.
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