Category Archives: Euthanasia

The winter break is over and Victoria's parliamentarians are set to return to passionate debate on whether they will give the state's terminally ill a choice on when they die.

Legislation on assisted dying is not expected to be introduced when parliament resumes this week, but MPs will no doubt be grilled on their thoughts.

Premier Daniel Andrews hopes to see a vote on the scheme, which he says will be the "safest" in the world, by the end of 2017.

"What we know is many Victorians are not getting the care they need," he said in July when announcing his government would adopt all 66 recommendations made by an expert panel.

"There is no solution to their unbearable pain and they are taking matters into their own hands (and) that leads to many tragic outcomes, that's unacceptable to me."

While the government has endorsed the report, not all Labor MPs will vote for it to become law.

Mr Andrews' deputy, James Merlino, has long said he does not support euthanasia and reaffirmed his position during the winter break.

A passionate debate is anticipated and already tensions have started to mount thanks to a Right To Life leaflet campaign in nine electorates.

The government will also be bracing itself for a report into its controversial fire service reforms due on the first day back.

The committee has spent the break grilling firefighters, service executives and departments on whether the CFA should become volunteer-only, with paid firefighters to move into a newly formed Fire Rescue Victoria.

Their report is due on Tuesday and will play a pivotal role in whether the reforms, which are tied to the approval of well-supported presumptive cancer compensation rights.

In other parliamentary business, ride-sharing services like Uber will soon be legalised with amended laws returning to the lower house.

The government accepted upper house changes including halving the ride levy to $1 which will replace licence fees and help compensate taxi operators.

Excerpt from:

Euthanasia, CFA to dominate Vic MP debate - SBS

County Commissioner Everette Witherspoon said he believes the Forsyth Humane Society should share in the responsibility of humane euthanasia if a proposed joint service agreement is approved between the organization and Forsyth County.

Witherspoon said Thursday during the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners briefing session that he is concerned that the county will continue to get complaints and be blamed for the humane euthanasia of animals, not the humane society.

If were going to pay them $510,000, then they need to do the dirty work also, Witherspoon said.

The humane society is a nonprofit animal welfare organization that supports a no-kill adoption center. The organizations proposal with Forsyth County calls for the humane society to expand its operations to include portions of the Forsyth County Animal Shelter on Sturmer Park Circle while continuing its own operation on Country Club Road.

Deputy County Manager Damon Sanders-Pratt presented information Thursday to the commissioners about the proposed agreement and a lease between the county and the humane society.

In response to Witherspoons comments, Sanders-Pratt said, Euthanizing animals is a necessary evil that we try to keep to a minimum as well, but its a relatively small part of the complaints. Now, there are some organizations like the humane society who have in their charter that they are no-kill, so until that were to change, they cant do that.

Witherspoon said that although euthanasia does not generate most of the complaints concerning the animal shelter, they are the type of complaints that tend to get the most attention.

The loudest complaints are what cause problems, Witherspoon said.

Sanders-Pratt said that the proposed agreement would run from Sept. 1, 2017 through Aug. 31, 2022 and the contract would not exceed $510,714.

Through the agreement, the humane society would provide care, custody, adoption and its general operations within about 11,579 square feet in the animal shelter.

The humane society would care for all dogs and cats at the animal shelter, while the county would provide care for other animals, including rabbits, reptiles and ferrets.

The county would also be in charge of all animals that are in a three- to five-day statutory hold period or at the direction of the court, and would continue to be responsible for such areas as animal control.

After that time is up, Forsyth County and the humane society would make joint decisions about which animals are eligible for transfer to the custody of the humane society for potential adoption or other transfer.

The agreement also calls for the county staff to retain responsibility for humane euthanasia when it was necessary.

Commissioner Dave Plyler, chairman of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners, said he is concerned that the general public might be confused about the best person to go to at the shelter, as the humane society and the animal control staff will handle separate operations.

Commissioner Fleming El-Amin said he believes there should be clarification on the joint decision-making process between the county and the humane society to avoid muddy waters, including the transfer of animals to the humane society.

Mark Neff, director of operations for the Forsyth Humane Society, said Friday in an interview that a lot of what the humane society would be doing in the Forsyth County Animal Shelter would be done in phases, looking at intake, looking at redemption, looking at animal care.

Eventually at one point, euthanasia will be under our consideration, Neff said. It just isnt going to be Day 1. We dont have a true timeline on when thats going to happen. In order to be successful, you want to make sure you dont take everything on at once.

See original here:

County commissioner wants humane society to share in humane euthanasia - Winston-Salem Journal

Right to Life is not known for its subtlety in a fight.

So when ads started appearing in Daniel Andrews' local suburban newspaper recently accusing the Premier of trying to legalise "patient killing" few were surprised that the pro-life group was involved.

At its head is seasoned campaigner Margaret Tighe, now in her 80s, and a veteran of decades of "punishment politics". From the battle to decriminalise abortion, to the IVF debate, her organisation has routinely targeted MPs in volatile seats with highly emotive scare campaigns.

The assisted dying bill in Victoria endorsed by Andrews himself has brought Tighe out again to wage moral war.

"We're taking the fight right up to the enemy," she told Fairfax Mediathis week as her group distributed leaflets across eight marginal seats as well as Andrews' Mulgrave electorate. "It's a controversial issue, so it's important that people know what's being proposed."

With state parliament set to decide whether terminally ill people should have the right to a physician-assisted death, Right to Life is part of a formidable coalition of opponents: from religious leaders and medical specialists, to disability groups and hardline campaigners, all fighting the legislation.

Politicians are being bombarded with pro forma emails and letters some scripted by church volunteers, others by national anti-euthanasia agencies urging them to vote against the bill when it is introduced at Spring Street later this month.

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Delegations of faith-based representatives and doctors are criss-crossing the state to meet MPs: a few weeks ago, for instance, Australian Christian Lobby state president Dan Flynn brought in three doctors to see upper house leader Gavin Jennings, the Premier's right-hand-man in cabinet, to argue the need for better palliative care.

"The best arguments are not necessarily religious," says Flynn.

And Right to Life recently paid for US anti-euthanasia campaigner William Toffler, a controversial Catholic who believes abortion can lead to breast cancer, to conduct a speaking tour around Australia.

But the biggest combatant of all is the Catholic Church. On Thursday, as Melbourne shivered through another frosty winter morning, Pat Shea, a parish volunteer from Inverloch, entered the electorate office of Bass MP Brian Paynter, holding a petition and letters from churchgoers with a simple message: don't vote for the bill.

The seeds of that message were on sown on April 18, when Archbishop Denis Hart wrote to priests asking them to "pray and to act", in other words, to get mobilised and to find "lay people" to spread the church's concerns about the renewed push for reform.

Attached to his letter was a two-page document co-signed by his bishops, arguing voluntary euthanasia was "never justified" and merely represented "the abandonment of the sick and the suffering". The Catholic Education Office passed that document on to its Victorian schools. Some are now getting politically active.

"The case for legalised 'Physician Assisted Suicide' is a direct attack upon our Catholic beliefs and would further erode society's respect for the 5th commandment," said one recent newsletter to parents at St Joseph's School in Wonthaggi.

"Euphemisms, such as 'assisted dying' and 'dying with dignity' are being hailed as acts of compassion, yet, with the sugar coating removed, euthanasia is about actively killing someone, and assisted suicide is helping someone to suicide. We need your help to convince our local member of parliament to oppose 'Physician Assisted Suicide' and to promote Palliative Care. An information session is planned."

Opinion polls show the church is fighting an uphill battle, with up to 85 per cent of the community in favour giving of terminally ill people the right to a physician-assisted death.

If the legislation succeeds, it will be the first time such a law has passed in Australia since euthanasia was legalised in the Northern Territory in 1995, only to be overturned by the federal parliament one year after taking effect.

The difference for Victoria is that the Commonwealth has no power to repeal the state euthanasia legislation. And in a sign of just how tight the numbers are likely to be, government insiders have not ruled out introducing the bill in the upper house, where some are more confident of securing a majority when the legislation is put to a conscience vote.

This unusual tactic would give more time to undecided MPs in the lower house, where Andrews and Health Minister Jill Hennessy will champion the bill, but Deputy Premier James Merlino, Opposition leader Matthew Guy, and a considerable number of Liberal, National and Labor politicians are set to vote against it.

Most, however, are hopeful the debate won't be quite as vicious as the battle to decriminalise abortion in Victoria in 2008. Back then, animal organs were sent to cabinet minister Jacinta Allan; plastic fetuses were distributed to pro-choice politicians accusing them of being murderers; some MPs were even sent abusive emails directly to their Blackberries from angry members of the public as they sat down from speaking during the vote.

"I think inside the chamber it will be a pretty respectful debate, but outside the chamber who knows?" says Greens MP Colleen Hartland.

Hartland recalls the abortion debate well, partly because it happened the same year she introduced her own private members' bill for voluntary euthanasia, which was resoundingly defeated. But a lot has changed since then: the influence of religion; the views of MPs; the public's momentum.

The "Yes" side of the campaign is spearheaded by neurosurgeonBrian Owler, who headed the government's expert panel for the bill, Dying With Dignity's Dr Rodney Syme, and newcomers like Go Gentle, the not-for-profit body set up last year by TV personality-turned-euthanasia advocate Andrew Denton.

Denton has devoted the past few years to reforming the law, but was forced to withdraw this week to have multiple bypass surgery after being diagnosed with advanced heart disease.

Until he can return, Go Gentle's work will continue under its campaign manager Paul Price, a former senior adviser in the Baillieu Liberal government. In a bid to mobilise the "silent majority", a new ad will soon be released in marginal seats asking people whether the individual, or the church, should have the right to choose how long they suffer in intolerable pain before death.

The aim, says Price, is toovercome the "noisy minority of mostly faith-based opponents".

"They are organised and active," he says.

Indeed, Right to Life stepped up its campaign in May, when Tighe sent a letter to every parliamentarian with a table of the nine MPs in marginal seats that her group targeted over abortion a decade ago plus the swings against them at the 2010 Victorian election. It was hardly a subtle threat.

Others, like the ACL's Dan Flynn or Paul Russell, from the national anti-euthanasia group,HOPE,have mobilised their supporters to take part in a grassroots letter-writing campaign, while representatives travel from electorate-to-electorate in the hope of swaying MPs.

The state's Christian leaders have also made it clear that the battlelines have been drawn: note, for example, this week's "open letter" in the Herald Sun, signed by leaders in the Greek Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican, Catholic, the Syro-Malabar Eparchy, Ukrainian Catholic, and Coptic Orthodox Churches.

Andrews, the Catholic premier whose resistance to voluntary euthanasia shifted last year after the death of his father, responds like this:"People are free to express their views," he says.

"I would hope, though, that this debate is conducted in the spirit of respect. My own conscience tells me that this is the change that needs to be made."

More:

Pray and act: Church leaders, lobby groups battle Victorian ... - The Age

Posted: Aug. 2, 2017 8:00 am Updated: Aug. 2, 2017 7:28 pm

LONDON (AP) Euthanasia has become "common practice" in the Netherlands, accounting for 4.5 percent of deaths, according to researchers who say requests are increasing from people who aren't terminally ill.

In 2002, the Netherlands became the first country in the world that made it legal for doctors to help people die. Both euthanasia, where doctors actively kill patients, and assisted suicide, where physicians prescribe patients a lethal dose of drugs, are allowed. People must be "suffering unbearably" with no hope of relief but their condition does not have to be fatal.

"It looks like patients are now more willing to ask for euthanasia and physicians are more willing to grant it," said lead author Dr. Agnes van der Heide of Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam.

The 25-year review published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine is based on physician questionnaires. The use of euthanasia and assisted suicide "to relieve end-of-life suffering has become common practice in the Netherlands," the authors said in the report.

The review shows that in 1990, before it was legal, 1.7 percent of deaths were from euthanasia or assisted suicide. That rose to 4.5 percent by 2015. The vast majority 92 percent had serious illness and the rest had health problems from old age, early-stage dementia or psychiatric problems or a combination. More than a third of those who died were over 80.

Requests from those who aren't terminally ill still represents a small share, but have been increasing, Van der Heide said.

"When assisted dying is becoming the more normal option at the end of life, there is a risk people will feel more inclined to ask for it," she said.

About 8 percent of the people who died in 2015 asked for help dying, the review showed. Van der Heide said about half of all requests are approved now, compared to about a third in previous years.

Scott Kim, a bioethicist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health who was not part of the study, said the report raises concerns, particularly in regards to people seeking euthanasia due to age-related issues.

"These are old people who may have health problems, but none of them are life-threatening. They're old, they can't get around, their friends are dead and their children don't visit anymore," he said. "This kind of trend cries out for a discussion. Do we think their lives are still worthwhile?"

Euthanasia is also legal in Belgium, Canada, Colombia and Luxembourg. Switzerland, Germany and six U.S. states allow assisted suicide.

Some experts said that the euthanasia experience in the Netherlands offered lessons to other countries debating similar legislation.

"If you legalize on the broad basis (that) the Dutch have, then this increase is what you would expect," said Penney Lewis, co-director of the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics at King's College London.

"Doctors become more confident in practicing euthanasia and more patients will start asking for it," she said. "Without a more restrictive system, like what you have in Oregon, you will naturally see an increase."

In 1997, Oregon was the first state to allow physician-assisted suicide for those given six months or less to live. It is now legal in Colorado, California, Montana, Vermont, Washington state and the District of Columbia.

Original post:

Euthanasia used for 4.5 percent of deaths in the Netherlands - New ... - New Jersey Herald

STACEY KIRK

Last updated16:52, August 2 2017

STUFF

A petition by former MP Maryan Street and more than 8000 others called for euthanasia to be made illegal.

A Parliamentary investigation into euthanasia has detailed an overwhelmingly negative response by New Zealanders who took the time to submit, and delivered almost no recommendations, other than that MPs "note" it.

But the inquiry was never intended to recommend a law change. Rather, it was designed to "investigate the views of New Zealanders".

And despite 80 per cent of people who made their views known to MPs on the Health Select Committee opposing it, the report has been welcomed by pro-euthanasia campaigner ACT leader David Seymour - who has a bill before Parliament to make it legal under strict controls.

1 NEWS

The ACT leader says it's good Parliament's health select committee has scotched conspiracy theories about euthanasia.

In a report delivered back to Parliament, from the committee, it detailed the arguments MPs heard over the issue as they undertook an inquiry that garnered a record 21,000 submissions. It also acknowledged a number of scientific polls that showed up to 75 per cent of New Zealanders were in favour of euthanasia.

READ MORE: *Euthanasia: How is it done, and what's it like putting down something you've vowed to care for? * Helen Kelly:'Why can't I have the option of assisted dying?' *MPs to vote on euthanasia after bill places the issue back in front of Parliament

Many who spoke to the committee talked of the "risk of coercion" and the concern that vulnerable elderly or disabled people might feel compelled to opt for euthanasia, if they felt they were a burden to their families.

Four MPs have tried to get Parliament to legalise voluntary euthanasia.

Many - both for and against - spoke of their own personal experiences of watching loved ones go through the final stages of a terminal illness. The committee also heard from experts right throughout the medical profession, academics, psychologists and healthcare workers.

"Some submitters were concerned that disabled people would be pressured to choose assisted dying. However, several submitters who identified as disabled rejected this view, and argued that they should have the right to make end-of-life choices.

"Many submitters questioned why anyone would let a loved one suffer a prolonged and undignified death when they would not allow the same for a family pet," the report said.

Dignity was a major theme across submissions.

"Proponents often defined dignity on the basis of maintaining independence, and physical and mental capacity. There was a clear desire to maintain bodily functions and not become reliant on others.

"Submitters often spoke of not wishing to be a burden, either to family or society, and commented that to be a burden would lessen their own self-worth," the report said.

Those in opposition to euthanasia however, said that argument undermined the idea of human dignity "by equating an individual's worth with their ability to contribute to society".

The majority of people who supported a law change did so for reasons of choice and individual freedom. That was in contrast to many who believed the law was there touphold the value of life.

But most agreed, there was a clear line to cross before allowing someone to die became euthanasia.

"There is general consensus that it is ethically and legally permissible to withdraw treatment at a patient's request or because treatment is not working. This is not euthanasia.

"Other arguments that predominated among those supporting a law change included the desire to not lose their abilities or a sense of self (41 per cent of those in favour), and the desire to not suffer (41 per cent of those in favour). Key arguments from those against included the dangers to vulnerable people (38 per cent of those opposed) and that modern palliative care is sufficient to treat suffering (31 per cent of those opposed)," the report said.

Health Select Committee chair Simon O'Connorsaid it was "by far" the largest parliamentary investigation undertaken. It was a "complicated, divisive" issue.

The committee's NZ First MPs delivered a minority view, that any potential law changes should be the subject of a public referendum.

The committee encourage "everyone with an interest in the subject to read the report in full, and to draw their own conclusions based on the evidence presented in it".

Seymour said he welcomed the report, because it scotched "the mythology and the conspiracy theories" around euthanasia.

"I think it's unfortunate that the report's recommendations are weak, but that shows we need a bill to be voted on in Parliament," he said.

"The report acknowledges that there's no connection between suicide and assisted dying, the report acknowledges that there is no connection between weakening perceptions of doctors and assisted dying.

"So in many respects that report is a good thing, because it trashes some of these conspiracy theories that we hear where people say only the most negative things about assisted dying that just aren't true."

Seymour was now encouraging voters to lobby their MPs at the electionto support euthanasia, as he began to work his own numbers to gain support for his bill.

It was still uncertain whether Parliament would have the time to hear the bill on its first reading, before the House rose on August 17 for the General Election.

-Stuff

View post:

Parliamentary inquiry into record euthanasia submissions: 'note ... - Stuff.co.nz

In a story Aug. 2 about euthanasia, The Associated Press reported erroneously that the study authors wrote that euthanasia and assisted suicide had become common practice. They were referring to certain medication methods used by physicians as becoming common practice, not to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Euthanasia used for 4.5 percent of deaths in the Netherlands

Report shows euthanasia has become common in the Netherlands; accounts for 4.5 percent of deaths

By MARIA CHENG

AP Medical Writer

LONDON (AP) Euthanasia has become a common way to die in the Netherlands, accounting for 4.5 percent of deaths, according to researchers who say requests are increasing from people who aren't terminally ill.

In 2002, the Netherlands became the first country in the world that made it legal for doctors to help people die. Both euthanasia, where doctors actively kill patients, and assisted suicide, where physicians prescribe patients a lethal dose of drugs, are allowed. People must be "suffering unbearably" with no hope of relief but their condition does not have to be fatal.

"It looks like patients are now more willing to ask for euthanasia and physicians are more willing to grant it," said lead author Dr. Agnes Van der Heide of Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam.

The 25-year review published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine is based on physician questionnaires. The use of morphine and sedation which might hasten death has become common practice in the Netherlands, the authors said in the report.

The review shows that in 1990, before it was legal, 1.7 percent of deaths were from euthanasia or assisted suicide. That rose to 4.5 percent by 2015. The vast majority 92 percent had serious illness and the rest had health problems from old age, early-stage dementia or psychiatric problems or a combination. More than a third of those who died were over 80.

Requests from those who aren't terminally ill still represent a small share, but have been increasing, Van der Heide said.

"When assisted dying is becoming the more normal option at the end of life, there is a risk people will feel more inclined to ask for it," she said.

About 8 percent of the people who died in 2015 asked for help dying, the review showed. Van der Heide said about half of all requests are approved now, compared with about a third in previous years.

Scott Kim, a bioethicist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health who was not part of the study, said the report raises concerns, particularly in regards to people seeking euthanasia due to age-related issues.

"These are old people who may have health problems, but none of them are life-threatening. They're old, they can't get around, their friends are dead and their children don't visit anymore," he said. "This kind of trend cries out for a discussion. Do we think their lives are still worthwhile?"

Euthanasia is also legal in Belgium, Canada, Colombia and Luxembourg. Switzerland, Germany and six U.S. states allow assisted suicide.

Some experts said that the euthanasia experience in the Netherlands offered lessons to other countries debating similar legislation.

"If you legalize on the broad basis (that) the Dutch have, then this increase is what you would expect," said Penney Lewis, co-director of the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics at King's College London.

"Doctors become more confident in practicing euthanasia and more patients will start asking for it," she said. "Without a more restrictive system, like what you have in Oregon, you will naturally see an increase."

In 1997, Oregon was the first U.S. state to allow physician-assisted suicide for those given six months or less to live. It is now legal in Colorado, California, Montana, Vermont, Washington state and the District of Columbia.

See original here:

Correction: Netherlands-euthanasia story - ABC News

Euthanasia is now the cause of 4.5 percent of deaths in the Netherlands. The rise in the practice has grave implications for the elderly and people dependent on caregivers, as more people who don't suffer from terminal illness are requesting euthanasia.

In 2015, more than one-third were older than 80 years. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, 92 percent of those who died from assisted suicide or euthanasia suffered from a "serious somatic" illness, mental disorders, and 14 percent suffered "an accumulation of health problems" from old age, and a small number had dementia or mental health problems. A patient must be suffering unbearably without hope of relief, but having a terminal illness is not required for legal assisted suicide or euthanasia.

It looks like patients are now more willing to ask for euthanasia and physicians are more willing to grant it, Agnes Van der Heide from Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam said.

The growing number of cases is frightening for advocates of the dignity of human life at every stage. AP quotes Scott Kim, a bioethicist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health saying, These are old people who may have health problems, but none of them are life-threatening. Theyre old, they cant get around, their friends are dead and their children dont visit anymore. This kind of trend cries out for a discussion. Do we think their lives are still worthwhile?

Van der Heide said, When assisted dying is becoming the more normal option at the end of life, there is a risk people will feel more inclined to ask for it.

According to the journal: In the Netherlands, euthanasia isdeath resulting from medication that is administered by a physician with the explicit intention of hastening death at the explicit request of the physician. And assisted suicide, the patient self-administers medication that was prescribed by a physician. While it has become more common, the journal says that the 2002 Euthanasia Act was formalizing a practice that already existed.

In all, the AP reports that approximately 8 percent of people who died in 2015 received assistance.

The Netherlands was the first country to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide, when the law passed in 2002. But in 1997, Oregon allowed for the assisted suicide of people who had six or fewer months to live, and is legal in multiple U.S. states.

Continue reading here:

Frightening Trend in Age-Related Euthanasia in the Netherlands - Townhall

TV personalityAndrew Denton has been diagnosed with advanced heart disease and will be required to undergo multiple bypass surgery shortly.

The diagnosis has forcedDenton, 57,to withdraw from the campaign to legalise euthanasia to which he has been devoting his energy in recent years.

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Advocate Andrew Denton speaks about Australia's role in spreading euthanasia laws around the globe.

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Advocate Andrew Denton speaks about Australia's role in spreading euthanasia laws around the globe.

As the director of Go Gentle Australia, the organisation he foundedto achieve law reform around the country, Denton may be absent at a critical juncture: as Premier Daniel Andrews' bill for assisted dying is introduced and thrashed out in the Victorian Parliament.

Go Gentle Australia's media director Gina McCollsaid Denton is "quite young and so the prognosis is extremely good".

"It's very successful surgery," she said. "He needs to have it quickly but after that he's expected to recover reasonably quickly and we're expecting him to join the campaign again in early September, some time like that.

"We're still in daily contact. He's still extremely funny and his humour is extremely black."

ButDenton'sabsence from the campaign as the euthanasia debate heats up this monthhas been described by some proponents as a "disaster".

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"It's terrible for Andrew, and a disaster for the broader campaign," one supporter of the bill said.

However, Go GentleAustralia played down concerns, saying Denton's work towards voluntary assisted dying would continue under its campaign manager Paul Price, a former senior adviser in the Baillieu Liberal government.

"The Go Gentle campaign continues in full force," Mr Price told Fairfax Media.

"In the next weeks and months we will be marshalling the support of the more than 75 per cent of Victorians who want voluntary assisted dying to become law."

Denton set up Go Gentle Australia last year almost two decades after watching his father Kit die a slow and painful death from heart failure in a bid to convince politicians to give terminally ill people the right to a physician-assisted death in strictly defined circumstances.

In that time, he has become one of the leading public faces of the "yes" campaign, appearing at community forums, across the airwaves, and alongside Victorian Health Minister Jill Hennessy to talk to delegates at Labor's state council.

But the debate is likely to intensify even further in coming weeks, when the bill on assisted dying is introduced in the lower house, paving the way for the most heated policy fight the Premier faces ahead of next year's election.

In a sign that the battlelines have well and truly been drawn, leaders of the Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Greek Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox churches placed an open letter in the Herald Sun on Monday saying that assisted suicide represented the "abandonment" of the terminally ill and sent a "confusing message" about the value of life.

Right to Life has also stepped up its opposition, sending out leaflets in nine marginal electorates which looked as though they came from the sitting MP in each seat suggesting Mr Andrews was attempting to sanction suicide to "save healthcare dollars".

If you are troubled by this report, experiencing a personal crisis or thinking about suicide, you can call Lifeline 131 114 or beyondblue 1300 224 636 or visit lifeline.org.au or beyondblue.org.au

With AAP

Here is the original post:

Euthanasia: Illness derails campaign of high-profile advocate Andrew Denton - The Age

OXFORD, England Recent increases in euthanasia and assisted suicide deaths among psychiatric and dementia patients reflect the concerns church officials expressed years ago, said a Dutch cardinal.

Cardinal Willem Eijk of Utrecht, Netherlands, said psychiatrist Boudewijn Chabot was right to complain that doctors were now ignoring legal requirements that a patient requesting death should be suffering unbearably and without prospect.

Writing in the NRC Handelsblad daily, Chabot, a pioneer of the Dutch euthanasia law, said he fully favored self-determination and was unconcerned about the increase in euthanasia deaths. However, he added that he was alarmed by euthanasias extension to psychiatric patients, as well as to dementia sufferers, 141 of whom were killed in 2016, compared to just 12 in 2009.

RELATED: Vatican launches Belgium euthanasia investigation

In an August 1 statement to Catholic News Service, Eijk, who heads the Dutch bishops medical ethics commission, said, Chabot is now complaining about a development he himself initiated.

Of course, its good to read that an initiator and early advocate of euthanasia and assisted suicide is now concerned, the cardinal said. But the Dutch bishops conference has warned from the beginning against violating the intrinsic dignity of human life through euthanasia or assisted suicide, because it is never ever allowable to violate intrinsic values, and because in doing so you put yourself on a slippery slope.

But was it not naive, when he started this in the 1990s, to suppose that ending life for psychiatric disorders would remain limited to a few cases only? the cardinal asked.

RELATED: Head of Vaticans Academy of Life: Dialogue is love, not compromise

The Netherlands became the worlds first country to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2002 and has since witnessed a rapid increase in related deaths, with 20 now occurring daily, according to a May report by the Regional Euthanasia Commission.

The report said 6,672 euthanasia deaths had been registered in 2015, compared to just 150 from assisted suicide, while 431 patients had been killed without explicit consent.

Eijk said euthanasia had originally been permitted only at the explicit request of a patient in the terminal stage of an incurable somatic disease, but had been steadily extended and was now accepted before the terminal stage of life.

When one breaks the principle that human life is an essential value, one steps on the slippery slope, the cardinal added. Dutch experiences teach that we will be confronted time and again with the question whether the ending of life shouldnt also be possible with less serious forms of suffering.

In a landmark case in the early 1990s, Chabot was found criminally guilty, but spared punishment, for assisting the suicide of a 50-year-old healthy woman suffering existential distress.

However, in a January 2017 petition, he and 200 other Dutch doctors warned that legal protections were slowly breaking down, with many dementia and psychiatric patients being killed without actual oral consent.

In his NRC Handelsblad article, Chabot accused the official Euthanasia Commission of concealing that incapacitated people were surreptitiously killed, and said executions were now occurring.

In his statement, Eijk said ending life without consent had been made possible by the 2004 Groningen Protocol, which allows handicapped newborns with conditions such as spina bifida to be killed because of their perceived future suffering, or that of their parents.

He said a new assisted suicide bill, introduced in 2016, would allow healthy people suffering nonmedical conditions such as loneliness, bereavement, limited mobility and decline from old age to be helped to die by a nonprofessional assistant-in-suicide.

Our answer to suffering should not be to offer euthanasia or assisted suicide, but adequate, professional and loving palliative care of which, from a Christian perspective, pastoral care is an indispensable part, Eijk said.

When people suffer unbearably and without prospect from loneliness, a frequent problem in todays present hyper-individualist culture, we should try to change that culture instead of offering suicide to healthy people, he said.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide are also legal in neighboring Belgium and Luxembourg and are deemed nonpunishable in Switzerland. Polls suggest most Europeans favor euthanasia laws with safeguards.

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Dutch cardinal: Bishops warned of euthanasia's slippery slope - Crux: Covering all things Catholic

The final report on the public's attitudes towards assisted dying is 'deeply disappointing' and more like a cowardly essay, the former MP who instigated the inquiry says.

Maryan Street says the report is cowardly Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson

Parliament's health committee yesterday published its report without making any recommendations.

It said voluntary euthanasia was "very complicated, very divisive, and extremely contentious".

For that reason, it said, the authors wanted everyone with an interest to read the report in full and draw their own conclusions based on the evidence.

Former Labour MP Maryan Street, who submitted the 8974-strong petition calling for the inquiry two years ago, said the committee lacked bravery.

"[It's] a fairly cowardly report. It's more like an essay that puts out some of the evidence for and against, and it fails to arrive at any conclusion except to say 'this is a complicated issue', which anybody could have told them," she said.

The 49-page report weighs the arguments for and against, yet rarely analyses them and makes no firm recommendations.

Committee chair Simon O'Connor, a National MP who is opposed to assisted dying, said that was because it was asked to investigate and that was what it has done.

"Our recommendation is for MPs and the public to read our report.

"In many ways it's distilling the most comprehensive, largest parliamentary inquiry in the parliament's history. Trying to distill a very complex, divisive argument down to a few pages in the hope that people can make up their own minds while actually delving more deeply into the issue," he said.

Matt Vickers, whose wife Lecretia Seales died while fighting in the courts for the right to end her life, said he was disappointed the report made no recommendations.

"It would have been great for them to recommend some form of legislation but looking at the make-up of the committee and the people on it, that was a lot to ask for."

The report was useful in some ways, Mr Vickers said.

"What they have done is to lay out all the claims and the evidence supporting those claims, and I think that will be useful when David Seymour's legislation reaches [parliament]."

Lecretia Seales' husband Matt Vickers. Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson

ACT MP David Seymour, whose member's bill on the same topic was drawn from the ballot in June, was also disappointed.

He allowed it had at least scotched some urban myths, such as elderly people in the Netherlands wearing 'do not euthanise me' bracelets: they don't.

Matthew Jansen, the secretary of the Care Alliance, a coalition opposed to assisted dying, was glad the report made no recommendations but said the inquiry was a wake-up for the medical community.

He said it showed many people no longer understood death.

"In our grandparents' generation, they were very familiar with death because it happened at home.

"With the hospitalisation and the medicalisation of dying, people have lost the direct contact. So they don't necessarily understand what is 'normal'.

"There is a big requirement for there to be an education process so people understand what to expect, and that some of the things they see are not about pain or distress, they are about the dying process. That's natural."

Despite 80 percent of the 22,000 submissions being opposed to assisted dying, multiple polls and studies have found New Zealanders [http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/322293/growing-support-for-euthanasia-in-nz-study

are at least two-thirds in favour].

Mr O'Connor expected many opinions could change on reading this report.

"Our committee is saying very strongly to Parliament and to the public, 'step back, take some time, read this report and think about it'.

"This is not a simple issue, it is a complex, divisive issue. It's trying to add a voice, if you will, against those who say 'this is just a no-brainer'," he said.

In the meantime, David Seymour's bill is awaiting its first reading.

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Euthanasia report 'deeply disappointing' | Radio New Zealand News - Radio New Zealand