Crossing the clear, bright line

In hindsight we cannot avoid the conclusion that all of this was over-reach; a misjudgement of the ability of parliamentarians to assess the true situation - even in the face of what seemed like a tsunami of public and media support.

What it does tell us, very clearly, is that - regardless of whatever minimalist approach is presented for debate - what the movers really want is so much more.

Victorian Health Minister, Jill Hennessy warned euthanasia supporters of this kind of over-reach behaviour recently in regards to what we are led to believe is the inevitable tabling of a euthanasia and/or assisted suicide bill in the Victorian Parliament sometime in the near future.

Under the headline: Euthanasia reform: 'Go softly or law will fail', the Australian article framed the story this way:

Victorian Health Minister Jill Hennessy has warned radical ­euthanasia activists that any proposed assisted-suicide laws will be moderate, to enable broad community support and avoid failure because of a scare campaign.

Ms Hennessy said the Greens and the Sex Party should be ­"sensible and open-minded" if ­euthanasia laws were introduced to the Victorian parliament, ­imploring the minor parties not to scupper the reform on the pretence of ­policy purity.

"To not do so would be an act of revisionism designed to make an important first step fail; it is not about you," Ms Hennessy said.

"Politicians need to ask themselves: is it about being pure or is it about saying 'let's get the best ­result we can'?"

But, once again, the euthanasia lobby cannot help itself; it cannot contain its enthusiasm in the wave of media support that has clouded the debate in Victoria as it has in South Australia.

Recommendation 49 of the Victorian Parliamentary Committee Report on 'end-of-life choices' tabled in July calls for a law for people, "suffering from a serious and incurable condition which is causing enduring and unbearable suffering" and that these persons must be "at the end of life (final weeks or months of life)".

Dr Rodney Syme wrote recently to the Victorian Health Minister on behalf of the Victorian pro-euthanasia lobby, calling for an extension to these terms to include people who have an 'advanced incurable illness'; in otherwords, not simply those who are clearly close to dying.

Syme's logic is internally consistent and compelling if, in fact, the aim of such legislation is to relieve suffering. It is not only those who are close to death who suffer. This is the same sort of argument put to the Belgian people regarding child euthanasia in 2013 and is the same argument circling in Holland at the moment in regards to proposals for child euthanasia and euthanasia for people who are 'tired if life'.

But there's a significant difference between the Dutch and Belgian examples (above) and what Syme is presenting and what was presented in the bill in South Australia. The Dutch and the Belgians already have euthanasia on the statute books. Arguments for incremental extensions are easier to make once the beachhead is established.

Returning to van Loenen's observations, it should be obvious to anyone that once we abandon the equal protection of the law for every citizen from acts of homicide and assisting in suicide; wherever we choose to draw the line next will not have the same holding force as the criminal code.

We will have created exceptions that will later be tested by arguments such as those put by Syme; exceptions that will further erode the protection of the law, replacing it with the arbitrary decisions of individual doctors who, in effect, will become the law.