The Victorian Bishops have recently put out a trenchant response to the latest report of Victoria’s Voluntary Assistance in Dying Review Board (which monitors the workings of Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017). In it, they note the lack of information on, and access to, palliative care as an alternative.
Much of the bishop’s statement echoes criticism from elsewhere. The Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians has noted that in Canada, where euthanasia (‘Medical Assistance in Dying’) has been legal since 2016, there is ongoing confusion between it and palliative care. There is evidence to suggest that many Canadians would not have chosen to take this option if high-quality palliative care had been available to them.
While the legislation was proposed as something of a measure of last resort, the numbers already tell a different story. In its first year of operation, 348 people were assessed for eligibility to access voluntary assisted dying. 272 eligible applicants applied for a permit. 231 permits were issued and 124 people died from taking the prescribed medications.
As the bishops point out, the US state of Oregon, with a population somewhat over 4 million, took 17 years to reach these kinds of numbers.
Unfortunately, many of us with a disability look at these figures (and at the proposed legalisation of euthanasia in New Zealand, which will be voted on later this year) with a weary mix of familiarity and horror.
The aged care and disability Royal Commissions both running at the moment point to a society in which older people and those with disabilities are already deemed surplus to requirements. As I pointed out in my previous article, the response to COVID-19 (and especially the way it has been allowed to tear through aged care homes and disability support settings) has done very little to dispel this impression.
'It does not help that society has already largely internalised the narrative that a disabled life and — to a lesser extent, an elderly one — is not one worth living.'
It does not help that society has already largely internalised the narrative that a disabled life and — to a lesser extent, an elderly one — is not one worth living. Disability activist Samantha Connor has powerfully spoken of the occasion when she put up a sign in jest asking to raise money to send her to a Swiss suicide clinic. To her horror, she found people queuing up to donate with