Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese,
3 May 2013
3 May 2013
Dr Bernadette Tobin, Director of the Plunkett Centre for Ethics
On Thursday next week, the NSW Legislative Council will begin debating a bill which seeks to legalise voluntary physician assisted suicide.
Introduced yesterday as a private members bill by Greens senator, Cate Faehrmann and called the Rights of the Terminally Ill, the proposed legislation suggests assisted suicide of the terminally ill is a human rights issue with the Greens claiming the bill has included protections for those with dementia or incapacity due to their illness to make their wishes known.
But as Dr Bernadette Tobin, Director of the Plunkett Centre for Ethics at St Vincent's Hospital and Reader in Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University (ACU) warned last year, voluntary euthanasia not only requires the will and judgement of the patient but the will and judgement of the doctor who must decide whether they agree with the patient, and that the patient would be better off dead.
In a keynote address on Ethics and Euthanasia as part of ACU's Voice Speaker series, Dr Tobin pointed out that "if a doctor can make such a judgement on a competent patient, then the doctor can equally make such a judgement in the case of an incompetent patient."
Both judgements, she said, were mistaken and warned that such judgements held grave implications for the week and disabled.
"Every human being is equal precisely in having a human life which is our common humanity, our personhood and our dignity and intrinsic value. In refusing to violate that life, one respects the human person in the most fundamental and indispensable way," she said insisting this was no less true with regard to the life of a person trapped in an irreversible coma or an irreversibly unresponsive state.
Modern medications and the multi disciplines of palliative care help ensure quality of life and death with dignity
While the Greens, whose attempts to have voluntary euthanasia legalised in other states and territories of Australia have so far been defeated, the party is now in a bid to have NSW legislators pass a bill to allow laws permitting voluntary assisted suicide of the terminally ill, claiming this is a human rights issue.
Dr John Obeid, Senior Staff Specialist in Geriatric Medicine and Stroke at Blacktown Hospital disputes this, dismissing the Greens argument that euthanasia is a "right". He says the decision to die should be left up to the individual.
"This is a fatuous argument as once you involve a third person, such as a doctor to deliver a lethal injection, you are asking society to sanction killing," he says. As an example he compares a person who commits suicide with a person who asks someone to shoot them.
"Suicide is not a criminal offence and is a matter for the individual. But when you bring in a doctor to administer a lethal injection, it becomes the doctor's decision and this involves serious consequences for society as a whole."
Opposition to euthanasia and physician-assisted killing should not be confused as a "religious" issue he says and points out that abhorrence at so-called "therapeutic killing" dates back to the time of Hippocrates who lived 400 years before Christ.
NSW Greens MP Cate Faehrmann's euthanasia bill to be debated by NSW parliament next Thursday
Hippocrates was the ancient Greek who formulated the oath of ethics which is still taken today by members of the medical profession and which promises above all to: "prescribe regimens for the good of my patients...and never do harm to anyone."
The Rev Associate Professor at the Sydney Catholic Institute, Dr Gerard Gleeson stresses the proper goal of medicine was to promote the health and well being of the patient.
Despite the bill before the house listing so-called safeguards he points out that none of these would be needed if the Greens bill before the Legislative Council was genuinely in the best interests of the terminally ill.
"Euthanasia is a complex issue with far reaching consequences to society and is far too important to be decided by a bill requiring a few days of parliamentary debate followed by a conscience vote," says Professor Scott Prasser, Executive Director of the Public Policy Institute at ACU.
Advances in palliative care and trained specialists in this relatively new field of medicine are able to bring comfort to the dying in their final months or days of life not only helping to relieve pain but also depression, turmoil and other distress associated with their illness.
Dr Obeid points out that the frail and elderly who are often delirious, confused and at the weakest point in their lives are in no position to make an "informed decision" about ending their life. He is also unimpressed with surveys and polls touted by advocates of euthanasia that seem to suggest that the majority of Australians want to see voluntary suicide legalised.
"These polls are always maliciously designed and full of emotive language, asking people if they were in terrible pain with no help of relief would they want a lethal injection. The question instead should be, if a doctor couldn't work out why you are suffering and in pain and couldn't be bothered putting in the time and effort; or spending the resources to find out; should society decide to kill you. Phrased that way, you would get the opposite result," he predicts.
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