Daily Archives: July 29, 2017

A plan to establish a parliamentary inquiry into end-of-life legislation in WA may be debated in August.

End-of-life options: Mandurah MP David Templeman will bring on a parliamentary debate in WA on the introduction of euthanasia legislation. Photo: Nathan Hondros.

Morley MP Amber-Jade Sanderson is a supporter of euthanasia and has moved a motion calling for a parliamentary inquiry into end-of-life laws. Photo: Supplied.

Western Australiais one step closer to legalising euthanasia,after Mandurah MP David Templeman said a plan to establish a parliamentaryinquiry into end-of-life legislation would bedebated in August.

Mr Templeman, who is also the government ministerresponsible for which laws are debated, said the move could mean euthanasia legislation may be introduced as early as next year.

A motion to establish an inquiry into end-of-life choices was put on the notice paper in June by Morley MP Amber-Jade Sanderson.

It called for a committee to examine the need for laws in Western Australia to allow citizens to make informed decisions regarding their own end-of-life choices.

Mr Templeman said the committee, which would be made up of eight parliamentarians, would deliver its report by June 30, 2018, allowing any recommended end-of-life legislation to be debated by the years end.

An inquiry would allow the public to make submissions and Mr Templeman said he hoped it would also run public hearings.

From my personal point of view, this debate is well overdue and it is important that parliament considers it through a select committee because that process will allow the public to actually have input, he said.

Consistently, polls and surveys have shown that over 80 per cent of West Australians believe there needs to be laws in place that address end-of-life choice, or euthanasia.

Mr Templeman said he anticipated the public debate about euthanasia would involve strongly held views, but called on both sides to be respectful.

The discussion has to be done in a respectful and dignified way, but it is time for this issue to be debated and Im very keen to see the select committee get up, he said.

Im very keen, from a personal perspective and as member for Mandurah, to hear peoples views when that select committee is established and to hear what people think.

In March, Health Minister Roger Cook signalled his support for legalising euthanasia, while Greens MP Robin Chapple said he would work with LaborsAlannah MacTiernan to introduce legislation.

Morley MP Amber-Jade Sanderson, who put the motion calling for an inquiry into euthanasia laws on the notice paper, with Premier Mark McGowan. Photo: Supplied.

Mr Templeman said his personal view was supportive of dignity in dying legislation, but he was cautious about how a law would be implemented.

I suppose where I have caution is in what exactly that legislation looks like and the strict terms of when you actually arrive at assisted dying, he said.

Thats why Im really interested in this debate taking place, because I want to hear points of view.

Obviously, Ive been supportive of a form of euthanasia legislation for some time and welcome my constituency telling me what they think.

The last time WA parliament debated euthanasia legislation was in 2010 when a bill was defeated 24 votes to 11 in the upper house before it could be considered by the lower house.

The move to bring on the issue in WA comes as the Victorian parliament prepares to consider legislation after conducting its own inquiry into euthanasia.

The Victorian model was developed by a panel of experts andwould mean a request to die could only come from a patient of sound mind and could only be approved by a panel of doctors.

New offences would be created to prevent abuse.

The Victorian legislation has the support of the Victorian government, but it is understood any Western Australia legislation would be introduced as a private membersbill.

Premier Mark McGowan recently said he supportedeuthanasia but would prefer for MPs to exercisea conscience vote on the issue rather than toea party line.

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Euthanasia: Western Australian parliament to consider end-of-life legislation - Barossa & Light Herald

A University of Chicago professor argued in support of euthanasia for extremely sick or deformed newborns, according to a Thursday report from The College Fix.

Jerry Coyne, an ecology and evolution professor at the university, made the case in a July post on his personal blog, reported The College Fix.

If you are allowed to abort a fetus that has a severe genetic defect, microcephaly, spina bifida, or so on, then why arent you able to euthanize that same fetus just after its born? asked Coyne in his post.

I see no substantive difference that would make the former act moral and the latter immoral, continued the professor. After all, newborn babies arent aware of death, arent nearly as sentient as an older child or adult, and have no rational faculties to make judgments (and if theres severe mental disability, would never develop such faculties).

Coyne cites Princeton University philosopher Peter Singer and argues that such newborns lives should be terminated not only with the withdrawal of care, but also via injection, provided the doctors and parents consent.

After all, we euthanize our dogs and cats when to prolong their lives would be torture, so why not extend that to humans? reasons the professor. Dogs and cats, like newborns, cant make such a decision, and so their caregivers take the responsibility.

Coyne believes that religion distinguishes between humans, cats and dogs, deeming the former group special. He believes that when religion vanishes, as it will,so will much of the opposition to both adult and newborn euthanasia.

The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Coyne and the University of Chicago for comment, but received none in time for publication.

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Prof Argues For Newborn Euthanasia | The Daily Caller - The Daily Caller

UTAH -

It's one of the hardest decisions you can make: knowing when it's time to put your pet to sleep.

For the Coates family of Farmington, Utah it was very sad when their dog, Zoey, got sick. The family decided to take her to the vet to be euthanized.

Last fall, Zoey, a boxer breed, started having seizures. The dog also had a large mass on her side. The family thought it was cancerous and that it was slowly taking her life.

Tawny Coates, Zoey's owner, said her family had been through a very hard time over the past year. Her husband robbed a bank, the family lost their home after he went to prison, and then the family dog got ill.

"This felt like a final stab." Tawny Coates said. "Like it was just one too many things. I knew it was going to be what pushed my kids to their breaking point."

On November 29, 2016, Coates asked her father to do what she could not: take Zoey to Bayview Animal Hospital in Farmington to be euthanized.

Six months later, she thought her family was ready for a new dog just like Zoey.

"I knew we wanted a boxer," Tawny Coates said. "I knew a boxer would help my son heal."

She started looking online and came across a rescue page for boxers. It was there, in the photos, that she saw an image she will never forget.

"I see the Boxer Town rescue page and I'm like, 'That looks like my dog.' Then I thought, 'I'm crazy,' but I click on it anyway and zoom in and say, 'No, that's my dog!'" Coates said.

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Family asks veteran for euthanasia, finds out dog adopted out - KOAA.com Colorado Springs and Pueblo News

As I read of medical aid in dying proponents opposition to Dr. Harvey Schippers referring to the treatment of people with disabilities under the Nazi regime, I was reminded of a criticism by a member of the audience when I made similar comments during a presentation long ago.

In that presentation I talked about the role played by the practice of eugenics in the history of disability. I was told in no uncertain terms that it was unacceptable for me to have spoken of the killing of people with disabilities in Nazi-controlled Germany. Why? Because, here in Canada, there might be people of German origin in the audience who would be offended by such comments! To my critic, the issue was taboo! I disagreed. Postwar Germany has never held such views. The German people have worked diligently since the Second World War to ensure that the Nazi atrocities toward people with disabilities, embedded as they are in history, will not be repeated.

I cannot believe that opposition to Schippers comments is based either on denial of those Nazi realities or on sensitivities such as those mentioned above. As Catherine Frazee notes in her recent response to the opposition to Schipper, the Nazi euthanasia program is part of the history of her life as a disabled person, and it is also part of the history of the medical profession. She reminds us that those who would forbid us to speak of this history or who would police our speech as strident and unwelcome can only fuel doubt about whether its lessons have been learned.

If, indeed, some of us are reluctant to heed those lessons of the Nazi era in Germany, perhaps we could look at the lessons offered by our own history of eugenics. For a relatively recent example of euthanasia, according to Drs. D.P. Girvan and C.A. Stephens in an article (paywall) on the surgical management of a specific serious medical condition, 27 newborn babies were left to starve to death at Torontos renowned Hospital for Sick Children in the 20-year period ending in December 1971. They all had the medical condition, for which the standard and only treatment is immediate surgery. They did not receive the surgery. In the same period, in the same hospital, 120 other newborn babies with the same serious medical condition did receive the standard surgery, and 67 percent of those babies survived. The difference between the babies who were given the privilege of life through the necessary surgical intervention and the babies for whom euthanasia was seen as the appropriate solution was that the 27 babies who were euthanized had Down syndrome.

In an even more recent example, in 1983, Dr. Nachum Gal was charged with first-degree murder and eight additional charges in the death of a 16-hour-old baby in an Edmonton hospital. The babys parents were given to understand that their daughter had died because of brain damage resulting from lack of oxygen at birth. When it became known that Gal had ordered the injection of an abnormal and massive dose of morphine the child died soon after receiving it an inquiry was held. Tissue or blood samples were not taken at the time of the babys death, and Judge Carl Rolf decided that without that information it was not possible to determine the cause of death, even though the medical examiner had altered the cause from birth asphyxia to morphine intoxication. In any case, by that time, Gal had safely returned to Israel, whose government refused to extradite him to face charges.

The fact that public acceptance of the notion of euthanasia for people with disabilities was not automatic was long ago recognized in the standard medical texts, such as Tredgolds Textbook on Mental Deficiency (originally published in 1908 and used for much of the past century in most of the Western world including Canada). In the 1963 (10th) edition of this textbook, the pros and cons of euthanasia are in the chapter titled The Prevention of Subnormality, where Tredgold suggested that probably most people would agree that it would be better were there no defectives, but that did not mean that public opinion would condone actively destroying them all. Significantly, Tredgold made what today seems to be an utterly shocking and unacceptable distinction between high grade defectives [who] are capable of enjoying life, forming loving relationships with others, and of performing useful work and low-grade defectives whose care and support, whether in their own homes or institutions, absorb a large amount of the time, energy and money of the normal population. Tredgold further opined that these low-grade defectives could not be employed to any advantage, and many of them are utterly helpless, miserable, deformed, repulsive, unlovable and unloving. Suggesting that it might be time for society to consider whether euthanasia should be permitted at the request of a parent or a guardian, he noted that many clinicians believe that it would be an economical and humane procedure were their existence to be painlessly terminated, and that this would be welcomed by a large proportion of parents.

In Canada possibly for the reason Tredgold cited, that public opinion might not tolerate the deliberate destruction of people with intellectual disabilities, but nevertheless to our collective shame sterilization and segregation were the preferred solutions to dealing with the societal problem of people we now recognize as having intellectual and developmental disabilities. Appalling as it is, our own history is well documented. Pretending such practice did not exist or trying to stifle its telling is cowardly, to say the least. It happened!

If recorded history is not sufficient, perhaps a personal example might help. My son has Down syndrome. He was born in 1964 (the year after the appearance of Tredgolds 10th edition). At the funeral of his dads oldest friend, we were introduced to the son of another former high school classmate, who was a doctor. The doctor immediately asked our sons age and, unsuspectingly, I told him. Ahh, was the response, just before amniocentesis [was introduced]! In other words, Ahh! Born just before you would have been free to abort him! While the graveside of a dear friend was hardly the place for me to give the response that was demanded by that shocking comment, I will forever regret my failure to do so.

It has taken many lifetimes of pain, insult and unhappiness for the persistent abuse of people with disabilities to be recognized and their rights enunciated in Canada. For people with disabilities, euthanasia has long been an issue of concern.

The abuse they have experienced is not restricted to euthanasia, sterilization, institutionalization or selective prenatal destruction, nor is it just certain doctors who inflict it. As Catherine Frazee points out, People with disabilities have suffered violence and harm at the hands of doctors, parents and caregivers. Subtler but still pervasive harm has been done by the indifference of much of society to the social and personal well-being of people with disabilities, which has led to their historical exclusion from formal education, employment opportunities and, in general, living a normal lifestyle. In todays autonomy-focused society, this indifference makes people with disabilities particularly vulnerable. Frazees reference to the Nazi euthanasia program is a timely reminder of this for all of us.

We cannot let a political argument about our selfish personal desires to choose when and how we die with medical assistance detract from the imperative to respect the inherent vulnerability of people with disabilities in this context.

Photo: Shutterstock/Nick Starichenko

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Canada has its own history of euthanasia - Policy Options