The perils of doctor-assisted killing Editorial
Over the past four years euthanasia, or assisted dying, laws have been enshrined in the statute books of every state in Australia.
But the perilous consequences of legalising assisted dying are scarcely understood by most Australian voters.
Victoria was the first state to adopt such legislation, which came into effect in 2019. The last state to take this step was New South Wales, where assisted dying laws came into effect at the end of November this year.
Allowing doctors, under specified circumstances, to kill their patients is not a minor modification to the law. It makes legal what, under earlier medical ethics (spelt out clearly in the Hippocratic Oath), would be regarded as unconscionable and abhorrent.
In Canada, euthanasia has been legal since 2016. Over the past seven years Dr Madeline Li, a psychiatrist at Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital, has reportedly overseen "hundreds of medically assisted dying cases".
She vividly remembers the first patient she helped to die. "I remember just how surreal it was," she said.
The patient was a woman in her mid-60s who was suffering from ovarian cancer. After she gave her final consent, Dr Li administered the lethal concoction. Five minutes later, the woman was dead.
"It was like stepping off a cliff, that first one," Dr Li said. "Then time passes and it normalises." (BBC News, January 14, 2023)
The most vulnerable individuals under assisted dying laws are, inevitably, the terminally ill, the disabled and the elderly.
Before euthanasia was legalised, doctors were expected to do all they could to heal patients. Failing that, they would endeavour to alleviate patients' sufferings — and with increasing success, one might add, given the strides medical science has made in recent decades in improving the quality and effectiveness of pain relief.
However, once the option of early death is made available, the terminally ill and the elderly are not-so-subtly given to understand that, however much they might prefer to live, they are a burden on their families and carers, and that, perhaps, for everyone's sake, they'd be better off resigning themselves to assisted dying.
This is an appalling predicament which no human should be expected to face.
Wherever euthanasia has been legalised — for example, in the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada and 10 U.S. jurisdictions (nine states and Washington, DC) — public opinion has been softened up beforehand.
Doctor-assisted killing is camouflaged in order to sound as if it is benevolent. Euphemisms abound. The practice is marketed to gullible voters as "death with dignity" and "assisted dying". A new acronym, MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying), has been adopted by Canadian law-makers. MAiD is intended to sound as innocuous a service as valeting or housekeeping.
Euthanasia proponents promise faithfully that assisted dying will be allowed only under exceptional circumstances and that the laws will contain ample safeguards against possible abuse.
However, as overseas experience has demonstrated time and again, it doesn't take long before these safeguards are viewed as unwarrent restrictions.
J.M. Sorrell, executive director of Massachusetts Death with Dignity, reassured euthanasia supporters that promised safeguards were a short-term expedient to allay public concerns. She was quoted as saying, "Once you get something passed, you can always work on amendments later." (Greenfield Recorder, December 28, 2022).
Alex Schadenberg, the co-founder and executive director of the Canadian-based Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, recently warned: "Safeguards are part of a deliberate bait-and-switch tactic by assisted suicide advocates to get a bill passed and then come back to amend it by gutting those safeguards." (Alex Schadenberg blogspot (Canada), December 11, 2023).
Canada, instead of restricting MAiD to people with incurable illnesses, is offering it to veterans struggling with PTSD, people on waiting-lists for surgery, and even the homeless.
Moreover, Justin Trudeau's Liberal government is reportedly planning to expand the scope of MAiD next year to make it available to people whose sole medical condition is mental illness.
How can Australia possibly avoid going down Canada's path?
