Australian lawmakers mull assisted suicide for pretty much everyone

As a former police officer in the Australian state of Victoria, Jeff Bourman says he has seen his “fair share of dead people.” Now a member of the state parliament, he is challenging the idea that terminally ill people are better off dead. “My main problem is the fact that, particularly with actual euthanasia, one second it’s murder, and the other second it’s not,” he said.

Lawmakers in the Legislative Council of Victoria’s bicameral Parliament are considering a bill to amend the state’s assisted suicide laws enacted in 2019. If they pass the measure, the parliament’s second chamber, the Legislative Assembly, will also debate the bill. If both houses pass the bill, it would then go to the governor for approval.

On March 5, Greens Party member Sarah Mansfield moved for a second reading of her bill, which would remove protections such as a rule permitting physicians to make conscience-based objections to assisted suicide. She included a measure requiring legislators to review the policy every three years, saying that she hopes lawmakers will eventually allow assisted suicide for children.

The ruling Labour party has said it will introduce its own bill, one that will likely contain similar clauses to retain the Greens’ votes and make Victoria the most extreme Australian state for assisted suicide. Safeguards in assisted suicide legislation have become obstacles to “access and equity,” Mansfield and her supporters argue. But the slippery slope of pro-euthanasia legislation jeopardizes doctors’ ability to help their patients and desensitizes Australians to what is right.

Since Victoria passed its assisted suicide law in 2017, every state and territory in Australia has followed suit except the Northern Territory. Already, Victoria has allowed the killing of nearly 1,300 of its citizens under its euthanasia laws.

In 2017, Victorian emergency room physician Stephen Parnis predicted that the legislative safeguards would eventually be called “impediments.” Opponents ridiculed his idea of a slippery slope.

When Mansfield argued for her bill, she said that the “so-called safeguards have turned out to significantly restrict access and not necessarily improve safety.” Both her bill and the Labour party’s plan would drop a citizenship requirement for assisted suicide eligibility. Anyone who has lived in the country for three years—including refugees and work visa holders—would be eligible to apply.

Mansfield called for health practitioners—nurses, pharmacists, social workers, and psychologists—with as little as one year of experience and some online training to be allowed to assess applicants and administer lethal drugs. Her bill would also allow medical professionals to initiate conversations about assisted suicide with patients. Current law restricts the authority to assess applicants and administer the drugs to trained medical physicians and prohibits them from bringing up assisted suicide with patients.

Haydn Walters, a physician and professor emeritus at University of Melbourne, said legislators view doctors’ allegiance to the Hippocratic Oath—to do no harm—as standing in the way of a viable alternative to dying naturally. “But we don’t go into medicine to kill people,” he said. He calls assisted suicide “lazy medicine.” Meanwhile, the state’s palliative care funding and training continues to drop.

Former Victorian Attorney General Robert Clark voted against the 2017 legislation, calling it appallingly bad. “It has so many adverse effects, particularly for those who are marginalized and disadvantaged, and for people who’ve grown up to believe that ‘doctor knows best,’” Clark said.

Proposed amendments would make it worse. Removing the conscientious objection clause, said Clark, would drive highly experienced and capable doctors out of end-of-life care. “Their absence could potentially expose patients to greater pressure to accept euthanasia and certainly to greater risk of receiving flawed advice in favor of assisted suicide,” he said.

In 1962, a Roy Morgan poll showed just 47% of Australians approved of assisted suicide. By 2017, 85% were in favor of it. But Parnis said that may be due to how poll designers asked the question. “If the questions were, ‘Would you like to choose the circumstances of your death free of pain, surrounded by those you care about, doing the things that you love?’—I dare say that there’d be 100% in favor of that,” he said.

Australian Christian Lobby state director Jasmine Yuen’s father died of cancer several years ago. She said he would never have considered taking his life early because he cherished every moment with his family, even while he was suffering, because he had hope of eternal life. But what about the older person who has no family, or worse, the 15% of elderly people who suffer abuse and neglect at the hands of family members? Yuen said hospitals can refer them to churches who would happily care for those who have no family. Only 44% of Australians claim to be Christians, and 85% of Australians approve of assisted suicide. Yuen said the government can help by legislating for life.

Clark, the former state attorney general, worries about pressure on patients. “Families might say, ‘Well, Parliament says assisted suicide is okay, therefore it must be okay, so maybe we should recommend it to our loved one as the best way forward for all of us,’” he said.

The bill is expected to pass. Parliamentarians are allowed a conscience vote, meaning they do not have to vote according to their party’s position, on whether to allow doctors a conscientious objection to assisting in their patients’ suicides.

Minutes after Mansfield introduced her bill in parliament, another MP recommended that Victoria cancel duck season to protect endangered, indigenous duck species. MP Bourman, who is the sole member of the Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers Party, cautioned his colleagues from moving on from life-threatening legislation too quickly.

“My political party is obviously well and truly into saving duck hunting,” Bourman said. “But … the subject of hunting ducks pales in comparison to the subject of suicide and euthanasia. … Some people are more worried about looking after ducks than they are about people.”