Australian assisted dying law forces religiously affiliated medical institutions to provide euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

New South Wales is the final Australian state to legalize euthanasia with a catch, the Voluntary Assisted Dying bill forces religiously affiliated medical institutions to provide euthanasia.

As stated by Michael Cook, the editor of Bioedge:

The new law will allow patients to choose between assisted suicide and euthanasia. Its provisions are more or less the same as the other states, but it does not allow institutions to refuse to allow their residents to have VAD, to the consternation of Catholic healthcare officials.

“This law will force organisations that do not agree with assisted dying to allow doctors onto their premises to prescribe and even administer restricted drugs with the intention of terminating a resident’s life – without even informing the facility,” said Brigid Meney, of Catholic Health Australia. “These laws ignore the rights of staff and residents who may choose to work and live in a particular residential facility because of their opposition to assisted dying.”

It is one thing to give doctors the right in law to kill their patients it is another issue when you force people who oppose the killing to participate.

Greg Donnelly, a Labor Member of the Legislative Council, who had proposed amendments, including conscience rights, to the legislation stated:

it was “utterly repugnant and draconian” to force facilities with moral objections to assisted suicide or euthanasia to allow the practices. Such provisions are “essentially an authoritarian imposition on what are, in our civil society, associations of people coming together for a purpose.”

Canada's euthanasia lobby has also launched a campaign to force religiously affiliated health care institutions to provide euthanasia.

The legislation will come into effect in 18 months.