Members of the New South Wales (NSW) Legislative Council will progress to a final vote on the Voluntary Assisted Dying bill this week, as the debate over amendments resumes from Tuesday.
A number of politicians, unions, charity organisations and pro-euthanasia groups on Tuesday gathered together to urge upper house members to support the bill.
Under the bill, those with incurable medical conditions who have less than six months to live or 12 months for neurodegenerative diseases will be allowed to end their own lives. If the legislation is passed, it will make NSW the last state in Australia to legalise euthanasia.
Last week, the upper house passed the bill at the second reading stage in a 20 to 17 vote, with four supporters of the bill absent. Some 46 amendments were made to the bill before it passed in the lower house with a majority of 20 votes.
The euthanasia bill was introduced by Sydney MP Alex Greenwich in October 2021. Greenwich is also behind the push to decriminalise abortion in NSW, having introduced the Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill in 2019.
One of the bill’s supporters is George Carey, former archbishop of Canterbury, who has written to every member of the NSW upper house, calling them to vote for the bill. Carey reportedly said while he did not intend to interfere in a matter that belongs to Australian citizens, he has had “a radical change of heart on assisted dying.”
“I have to question why so many religious leaders reject the concept of a ‘good death,’ by which those who are certainly at the end of life as a result of terminal illness are assisted to die well rather than in terrible prolonged pain and indignity,” he told the MPs.
Speaking to The Australian, Carey argued that “dogma should never trump compassion, and an individual’s autonomy to choose how he ends his life should always dominate.”
However, the push to legalise euthanasia has encountered pushbacks from some MPs and faith leaders of Catholic, Anglican, Baptist and Presbyterian churches and the Muslim and Jewish communities.
Australian Christian Lobby director Martyn Iles said the pro-euthanasia movement has taken the “Hippocratic Oath” of the medical profession, “first, do no harm,” and “turns it on its head.”
“It changes and reinvents the whole [medical] profession, and you see that it actually does change the psychology of profession in countries where it’s been around for many years,” he said in a speech on Feb. 17.
“Euthanasia is suicide by another name, but it’s worse because it co-opts a third party into the process. It brings a medical practitioner into the picture. It’s killing by another name.”
“Killing somebody because they’re weak, killing them because they’re sick, or killing yourself for similar reasons is not justification [for assisted dying.].”
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said in October last year that he wanted to invest in palliative care, noting that he “would personally oppose” the bill.
“But ultimately, I'll provide members of my team… a conscience vote… that’s been a long-standing tradition of the part.”
“I think in many ways, it’s a poor indictment of society that many people feel they need to end their lives in this way. As a compassionate society, we need to do everything we can.”
