Get your own
Free Home Page
There is no need to legislate on so-called voluntary euthanasia or 'assisted suicide' for those who are terminally ill . Moreover, to do so regardless is to introduce unacceptable risks to people who may not be terminally ill and are vulnerable to manipulation, coercion and worse, culminating in their early deaths.
Though I am a resident of Western Australia, I write knowing that legalisation of euthanasia in one State inevitably will put added pressure on legislatures of other States, including mine, to introduce similar legislation.
I am someone who has lived with a significant level of disability (quadriplegia) since 1978, almost twenty years, from the age of 24. In discussing euthanasia I know therefore first-hand about such often cited problems as loss of dignity, loss of autonomy and independence, both in my own context and in the lives of others I know about. I consider that people with disabilities are at particular risk from the introduction of euthanasia legislation.
Palliative care techniques of pain relief and maximisation of comfort are known to be of a high standard in Australia. They are able to ensure for the vast majority of terminally ill people that they are free of intolerable pain and discomfort. It is telling that palliative care professionals and volunteers will most often be opponents of the idea of legalised euthanasia. They are close to death and dying on a daily basis and know it is not necessary to relieve pain and suffering by euthanasia or assisted suicide.
If palliative care can deal with the needs we have when dying why is it that there is a continuing call for euthanasia? This is obviously partly a result of ignorance about this stage of life and our society has a pathological fear of death.
Perhaps many are more comfortable with the idea of taking 'a pill' to put pain, discomfort or any other experience we do not want out of our consciousness than to work through them. Maybe it is no accident that Australians are the world's heaviest consumers of pain killers and adopted, be it briefly, the first euthanasia legislation in the world in the Northern Territory.
Euthanasia legislation would make our culture one of death rather than life. Withdrawal of treatment, assisted suicide, abortion purely for choice for instance would all be morally defensible and become acceptable practices. I would rather that my children live in a society which supports and loves people in their discomfort and pain than one which applied the easy answer of euthanasia. The first is a community, the second is a calculating society of individualistic interests.
Suffering seems a part of our worldly existence. This is not something to be glorified but to be accepted about life. Fortunately we have learned much about helping people when they do suffer. For some, what is left of their lives may be such that their suffering cannot be alleviated as they would wish or need. Given good palliative care, I understand that this is the situation of very few. Some palliative care experts claim this is the situation for none but for the purpose of this submission I have adopted the conservative position that this may affect some.
It is not a good enough rationale, much as I do empathise with such individuals, that euthanasia be legalised, with its attendant raft of serious risks to life for whole vulnerable groups in our society, for sake of a few.
The need for euthanasia is often confused with results obtained by means of questionnaires showing a high level of support among the Australian population for euthanasia. At least some of the most quoted surveys have asked ambiguous questions, leaving much to the interpretation of the reader. They may also ask leading questions, based on assumptions of high levels of suffering and discomfort in most deaths, which I understand is not true to fact. Such surveys also, inevitably, tap into the understandable and pervasive public fears of death and incapacity which are more often based on conjecture and anticipation than first-hand knowledge (which in the case of dying is of course somewhat impossible).
Some of these fears may be based on observing a distressing dying or death of someone close. It is understandable that some people have strong emotional rationales for euthanasia in such cases (like Mr.Perron in the NT) but such rationales should not inevitably translate into laws made by Parliaments. It is not possible of course to safeguard against all suffering and it may be that for various reasons good palliative care was not available in these instances.
It is always a different story when one is personally faced with a situation of disability or impending death then 'bravely' ticking an answer in a questionnaire which says you'd rather be dead than have a disability, loose control over bodily functions or whatever. If I had been asked a similar question before the onset of my disability I might well have answered similarly. However, despite high levels of dependence, I value my life, difficult as it is at times, and would not voluntarily give it up. Most people, I believe are the same.
We should not institutionalise euthanasia to appease unreasonable fears. If necessary, we should educate on issues around death and dying.
Next to pain, common fears of death and dying include 'loss of dignity', discomfort, becoming a burden on others, loss of autonomy and independence. Many people in Australia live with disabilities for a lifetime and overcome, or at least learn to live with, these issues. It is true that this may also be a life-time struggle and that some may not be as successful in overcoming these issues as others.
The point is that many such people are demonstrating daily that high levels of dependence, in even such personal areas as mobility, dressing, showering, toileting and many other areas of daily living, while thy can be difficult to live with, can be transcended and become part of a daily routine of living. It is quite possible to learn to accept assistance in these areas and keep ones dignity, sense of autonomy and self-respect. Counseling is available to help people overcome such feelings.
Furthermore, it is important to pay proper attention to the quality of the personal care and assistance and aids and equipment that may be necessary. While perfection in these matters is always elusive, much can be done in this way for one's peace of mind, including the feeling of being a burden.
It is well known that depression is often a factor when individuals request euthanasia. There are ways of dealing with depression and helping people work through problems and stages of development after which death, dying and associated issues will be more acceptable to these persons.
It is a matter of treating the discomfort, the pain and the emotional issues rather than treating them by killing the patient.
It should not be necessary, in our affluent and sophisticated society, to kill people because their concerns can not be met through any of the above assistance.
The term 'voluntary euthanasia' is obviously intended to indicate that euthanasia ought to be a matter of personal choice. It is often held to be a 'right to die with dignity' that is associated with a person's autonomy in a democratic society. It is often defended as something which is purely the concern of the person involved only and none of others' business.
Apart from issues such as addressed above about good palliative care displacing any need for euthanasia and about recognising the underlying issues to requests for euthanasia and addressing them, euthanasia may eventually become more widely applied than intended originally, if legalised.
Firstly, because of undue influence of a medical view of life, via the doctors one deals with;
or because of influence of family members who cannot or do not want to deal with support of someone who is dying or don't know how to and which creates the feeling of being a burden to one's loved ones;
or because one feels as being too much of a financial burden to society, people will choose for euthanasia for such reasons.
Again, these issues must be addressed rather than 'put a person out of our misery'.
Secondly, these same influences may play a role in the lives of people who have disabilities. Increasingly, in our society, cost has become an overwhelming rationale to do or not do certain things and a cost-benefit analysis has become the moral measuring stick of what is 'good' or not. Legalised euthanasia may thus become a vehicle for the termination of the lives of people who have disabilities, but who are not terminally ill. In a country where tolerance of minority groups has been recently shown to be merely veneer-thin, it is not inconceivable that populist cries for equality and equal distribution of entitlements and support allowances, may take this form.
It is not insignificant that in the Northern Territory Aborigines campaigned against the euthanasia legislation there!
Thirdly, it may become possible for people to be killed under the heading 'euthanasia', merely because they experience mental illness, depression or such like and are, influenced or not, asking for termination of their lives. In Holland, where euthanasia is not legal but legally tolerated and institutionalised, this has already happened with someone who had depression and who was 'treated' in this manner. In the same country a report has been released recently which revealed that forty percent of the deaths of people with intellectual disability were as a result of 'medical decision making', some of which deaths were admittedly 'involuntary'!
In many ways people with disabilities are devalued citizens in our society and are vulnerable to have their most fundamental human rights infringed, as many experience daily, including the right to life. This fact has been graphically and demonstrated by public exposures of life in disability institution in Tasmania, Victoria, NSW and Queensland. Euthanasia legislation would add to this vulnerability to a significant degree.
It is often claimed that euthanasia legislation could be framed which incorporates all the safeguards to its abuses, including those discussed above. I do not believe this is possible. It is thus not up to those who oppose euthanasia legislation to demonstrate why it should not be adopted. It is the responsibility of those proposing to change the status quo to demonstrate a. why euthanasia is needed, in the light of what we can do with good palliative care and, b. if they can demonstrate the first what water tight safeguards against its abuse can they provide, given:
Euthanasia is about a 'good death'. A good death is perfectly well possible with good palliative care. Palliative care may be more expensive than euthanasia but is about a humane way to care for and support people to the end. There simply seems no need for unnecessary suffering for the vast majority of terminally ill persons.
The call for euthanasia largely arises from ignorance and fear and, within the contexts of economic-rationalism and a medical model, is a real threat to the lives of others than the persons euthanasia is said to be sought for. These others include people with disabilities, already vulnerable people in our society.
Any State or country which adopts legal euthanasia will have rejected the available alternative of palliative care and must be considered suspect in its true reasons for its adoption of such legislation, notably motivations of what is most cost-effective. At best such a legislature may be swayed by an expression of popular opinion which is uneducated about the deeper issues and is therefore uninformed. The job of Parliament is not to blindly represent any expression of public opinion but to also satisfy itself that this opinion is based on a thorough exploration of all of the relevant issues before it is visited, in the form of law, on a whole people for which it governs.
People with mental illness, intellectual, physical, sensory and other disability make up some 18% of the population and their, and other vulnerable groups', human right to life is more important than to address the pain and discomfort relief for a very small number of people for whom palliative care may possibly not suffice.
The debate about euthanasia is a good thing for though it we come to examine the fundamental values we want our society to live by. We decide for a community where we care for each other or one which only pretends to do so under the guise of euthanasia.
Is the legal adoption of euthanasia and assisted suicide a sign of a truly civilised society? I think not.