Why the Rights of the Terminally Ill Bill must be opposed

The Christian Democratic Party strongly opposes the Rights of the Terminally Ill Bill introduced to the New South Wales Parliament by the Hon. Ian Cohen. The overview of the bill states:

The object of this Bill is to provide a legislative framework for the rights of the terminally ill persons to request and receive assistance to terminate their lives voluntarily. Under this framework, a terminally ill person may be assisted by a medical practitioner to administer a substance to himself or herself. If the terminally ill person is physically unable to administer the substance, the person can nominate a person to do this.

The Christian Democratic Party opposes this bill because we, and other honourable members, want to protect the people of New South Wales. I respect the sincerity of the Hon. Ian Cohen in introducing this bill, but I believe his sincerity is misguided. We need to protect the lives of all the citizens of New South Wales, especially the ill, the aged, those suffering pain, the poor, the uneducated, minorities, racial or religious groups, or those suffering from HIV-AIDS or other tragic illnesses. Voluntary consent may be given by a person, under coercion, by a doctor, by relatives or by other persons who may not be acting in good conscience. At such a time an ill person may think there is no other option but to allow someone to end their life.

The word "terminate" really means kill. Modern politically correct language often hides the significance of an act. For example, those killed in war are described as being part of a body count. This bill creates the jargon of "terminating" a person's life.

I shall read a letter written by Montana hospice physician Ira Byock and published in the New York Times Magazine on 21 July 1996. She wrote:

There is a legacy that reverberates beyond a last breath, depending on how, one way or another, those last days were faced. I treated a young man with AIDS who begged for me to help him die. His religiously fundamentalist family was appalled with him. So much was unspoken, unsettled.

Gradually the hospice team was able to bring them together, and to see that father gently bathing his son was nothing short of a miracle. Just think about that for a moment. It's all right there, the moment of truth. This man died in peace, and his family will always know they had loved him, something that wouldn't have happened if I or some other doctor had listened to his request to die.

That is why I emphasise the need to protect people even from making a decision that they think is correct at the time but which, in retrospect, they could regret. Also, we must face the fact that we are talking about legislation that will allow the administration of a lethal injection—that is, a poisonous injection. This is not a medical act to assist life or extend it; it is an act to end a person's life by the injection of a lethal substance into the bloodstream. We cannot avoid the fact that such an administration is similar to the manner in which some States of the United States of America execute prisoners.

The NSW Legislative Council and the other place have debated the principle of euthanasia. On 15 May 1997 a motion was moved in this House by the Hon. Elisabeth Kirby of the Australian Democrats. On the occasion of the introduction of the bill by the Hon. Elisabeth Kirby there was such strong feeling against the bill that a vote was taken on its first reading. When the honourable member moved, "That this bill be now read a first time" members of the Legislative Council divided on the question, and only four members voted in favour of the motion. They were the Hon. Alan Corbett, the Hon. Elisabeth Kirkby, the Hon. Ian Cohen and the Hon. Richard Jones. Thirty-four members voted against the motion. The opposing members included members of the Labor Party, the Liberal Party, the National Party, the Christian Democratic Party and so on. The vote – four for the motion and 34 against the motion – was a resounding defeat of the bill.

A similar vote was taken when the former member for Manly, Dr Macdonald, approached the euthanasia issue from another direction. His objective was to set up a euthanasia select committee. Obviously, he hoped that select committee would ultimately recommend the adoption of some form of voluntary euthanasia—or even euthanasia, because no-one knows what a committee may finally recommend. Obviously, that was the intention of the former member for Manly, who was a proponent of euthanasia.

When the Legislative Assembly came to vote on the question of whether the matter should be debated by the House, only three members of that place voted in favour of the motion. They were Dr Macdonald, Ms Clover Moore and Mr Windsor. Because I know Mr Windsor does not support euthanasia, I asked him later why he voted with the other two Independents. He said that they looked so lonely sitting there that he went across and sat with them. So only two members of the Legislative Assembly had real conviction in voting in favour of debating that bill.

The point I am making is that the matter of voluntary euthanasia has been ventilated and discussed in both Houses of the New South Wales Parliament, where the proponents have been resoundingly defeated in probably two of the strongest votes. Some may have forgotten that history, but people do not change their positions overnight. These are issues to which all honourable members give a great deal of thought. We normally maintain the position that we hold. We listen to the views of others, but we do not overnight lurch from the left to the right or from the right to the left on an issue.