Victoria Australia Assisted Dying Expansion Bill

Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Victoria Australia, like Canada, currently permits both euthanasia and assisted suicide. Therefore, the Victoria law already permits doctors to kill their patients by lethal injection or by prescribing the same lethal poison cocktail that the person would self-administer.

When Victoria Australia debated euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2017, in order to get support for the bill, they agreed to several "safeguards" including a 6 month terminal illness prognosis, which is similar to most US assisted suicide laws, and the requirement that doctors cannot initiate the discussion around euthanasia.

Similar to Canada where euthanasia and assisted suicide were legalized in 2016 under the term (MAiD), the provisions of the law were expanded in 2021 by eliminating the "terminal illness" requirement, eliminating the 10-day waiting period and permitting euthanasia for mental illness as the sole criteria, a provision that the Canadian government has delayed until March 17, 2027.

Every jurisdiction, that is currently debating euthanasia or assisted suicide, need to realize that nearly every jurisdiction that have legalized these acts, within a few short years, have expanded their laws.

How does the Victoria Assisted Dying Amendment Bill expand the law?:

• Currently doctors are not able to ask a patient if they want an assisted death, only patients can initiate the conversation. This bill enables doctors to initiate the question of an assisted death.
• Currently health practitioners who have a conscientiously objection don't need to refer or provide information, this bill requires them to refer or provide information to patients.
• Currently a person qualifies for an assisted death if they have a terminal prognosis of less than six months, this bill expands approval to people with a terminal prognosis of 12 months for all conditions.
• Currently a third medical assessment is required for neurodegenerative patients, this bill will reduce it to two medical assessments.
• Currently the two requests for an assisted death must be at least 9 days apart, the bill will reduce the second request to at least 5 days from the first request.
• Currently a person must be a citizen or permanent resident to be approved for an assisted death, this bill will not require the person to be a citizen or permanent resident but to have lived in Australia for at least 3 years.
• Currently a person must be a resident of the state of Victoria, this bill adds a "compassion" exemption to people who live in New South Wales or South Australia. This is a funny change since both New South Wales and South Australia permit euthanasia.
• This bill changes practitioner eligibility to make it easier for qualified doctors to participate.
• This bill simplies the permit to participate and creates a new administrative practitioner role to enable medical professionals who are not doctors to participate in the act.
• This bill allows interpreter flexibility when accredited ones are unavailable. In other words, the stringent requirement that someone fully understands the nature of the act has been weakened.

So let's be clear, Victoria Australia's euthanasia and assisted suicide law came into effect in June 2019.

The expansion bill changes the law by not requiring a person to be terminally ill but rather to have a terminal condition. People with a terminal condition and have a "12 month prognosis" are not dying and with treatment may recover or live a much longer life. Doctors cannot effectively determine a 12 month prognosis.

The expansion bill allows medical professionals to sell death. In Canada, MAiD teams approach peopl who have not offered any interest in being killed, but because of their medical condition, they are being harrassed into considering MAiD.

The expansion bill enables medical professionals who are not doctors to participate in the act. The same expansion is happenig in other jurisdictions based on the fact that very few doctors are willing to be killers, so they expand the catagory of who can be a killer.

In nearly every jurisdiction that has legalized euthanasia and/or assisted suicide, soon after, expand their law. Expansions are either done legislatively, as in Victoria Australia, or through interpretation of the law or both.

If your jurisdiction is debating euthanasia and assisted suicide, don't accept the arguement that the bill will not expand, if legalized. The language of the legislation to legalize these acts is determined by what it will take to legalize, not by what they intend, in the long term. Victoria Australia is a prime example since it tightened its original bill, to legalize the acts, and is, a few short years later, expanding the legislation, to enable more killing.