An ethics of care first pays attention to the need underlying the request. It is a participative two-way relationship with, in this case, a terminally ill patient. Care involves being with the suffering person, using thoughtful communication, trust, love, respect, and even humour, preserving meaning and purpose in the end stage of life, often seen as meaningless in our rational world.
So, why not have both options: palliative care and euthanasia? Perhaps we could, in a society where care is endemic, reserving euthanasia for those few cases where unbearable pain may not be otherwise relieved. We should let such a future society, in its practice-of-care-based wisdom, decide that question. In our utilitarian consumer society, state-sanctioned euthanasia carries risks of serious misuse, as long as most of us continue to devalue aged, frail, and highly dependent people who embody those parts of the human condition that we do not like.
Parliament should reject this Bill as an inappropriate route to relief of suffering. But if it does it should also examine its own health care policies and practices as potential contributors to requests for euthanasia. How to treat every life as valuable and deliver excellent care? How to strengthen palliative care? If we paid attention to human needs at every turn; took responsibility for them; did so competently and in participation with patients, then what would that look like? A more caring society.
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It has been said that the character of a nation is revealed in the way it treats its most vulnerable people. Terminally ill people certainly are vulnerable and that includes those affected by a slippery slope of euthanasia legislation. Bills such as this one are opportunities towards shaping the character of the nation in which we want to live.
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About the Author
Dr Erik Leipoldt is a Dutch-born Australian. He acquired his disability of quadriplegia in 1978, which first prompted his long-term involvement in disability advocacy and advocacy development. He is a past chair of the WA Disability Services Advisory Committee, and member of various former government disability policy advisory committees, including the Disability Advisory Council of Australia. He is a past convenor of the Australian Advocacy Network and past Executive Officer of People With Disabilities WA. He was a Member of the former Guardianship and Administration Board WA and is currently a Senior Sessional Member of the State Administrative Tribunal of Western Australia. Erik is known as an author of many articles, commenting from a disability perspective. His PhD thesis (2003) was entitled "Good life in the balance: a cross-national study of Dutch and Australian disability perspectives on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide." His main current interest is how disability experience may provide a practical guiding story to a sustainable world. He is an Adjunct Lecturer with the Centre for Research into Disability and Society, Curtin University of Technology, WA.
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