We believe in HOPE --- not euthanasia

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

As we approach the New Year let us focus on the importance of hope.

Many people seek death by euthanasia based on a loss of hope, meaning and purpose.

There were 15,343 Canadian euthanasia deaths in 2023 representing 4.7% of all deaths. Were these deaths about freedom, choice, or autonomy? We believe these deaths were about abandonment. 

We believe in HOPE.

A medical practitioner should provide hope, not death. Euthanasia and assisted suicide undermine hope and send the message that your life is not worth living.

Sometimes hope is for a cure. Sometimes hope is for better health. Sometimes hope is for a peaceful death. Hope always upholds life. 

An excellent article by Sharon Worchester titled: One Patient Changed This Oncologist’s View of Hope was published by Family Practice News on June 19, 2024. 

Worcester writes about an experience of Dr Richard Leiter:

Carlos, a 21-year-old, lay in a hospital bed, barely clinging to life. Following a stem cell transplant for leukemia, Carlos had developed a life-threatening case of graft-vs-host disease.

Dr Leiter, a palliative care doctor in training, spoke with Carlos's mother. The mother had hope that her son would get better. Dr Leiter knew that Carlos would not survive but he didn't offer hope to the mother.

Dr Alan Astrow:

Hope is not only a feature of human cognition but also a measurable and malleable construct that can affect life outcomes, Alan B. Astrow, MD, said during an ASCO symposium on “The Art and Science of Hope.”

“How we think about hope directly influences patient care,” said Dr. Astrow, chief of hematology and medical oncology at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital and a professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City.

Hope, whatever it turns out to be neurobiologically, is “very much a gift” that underlies human existence, he said.

Physicians have the capacity to restore or shatter a patient’s hopes, and those who come to understand the importance of hope will wish to extend the gift to others, Dr. Astrow said.

Dr Steven Z. Pantilat explained how doctors need to ask their patients what they hope for. Dr Pantilat told this story of one of his patients:

Dr. Pantilat recalled a patient with advanced pancreatic cancer who wished to see her daughter’s wedding in 10 months. He knew that was unlikely, but the discussion led to another solution.

Her daughter moved the wedding to the ICU.

Hope can persist and uplift even in the darkest of times, and “as clinicians, we need to be in the true hope business,” he said.

Dr Pantilat recognizes that hope can differ from one person to another:

While some patients may wish for a cure, others may want more time with family or comfort in the face of suffering. People can “hope for all the things that can still be, despite the fact that there’s a lot of things that can’t,” he said.

“We want to be honest with our patients — compassionate and kind, but honest — when we talk about their hopes,” Dr. Pantilat explained. Sometimes that means he needs to tell patients, “I wish that could happen. I wish I had a treatment that could make your cancer go away, but unfortunately, I don’t. So let’s think about what else we can do to help you.”

Hope provides benefits. Worchester explains:

One recent study found, for instance, that patients who reported feeling more hopeful also had lower levels of depression and anxiety. Early research also suggests that greater levels of hope may have a hand in reducing inflammation in patients with ovarian cancer and could even improve survival in some patients with advanced cancer.

Worchester concludes the article by suggesting how Dr Leiter could have offered hope to Carlos's mother:

For Dr. Leiter, while these lessons came early in his career as a palliative care physician, they persist and influence his practice today.

“I know that I could not have prevented Carlos’ death. None of us could have, and none of us could have protected his mother from the unimaginable grief that will stay with her for the rest of her life,” he said. “But I could have made things just a little bit less difficult for her.

“I could have acted as her guide rather than her cross-examiner,” he continued, explaining that he now sees hope as “a generous collaborator” that can coexist with rising creatinine levels, failing livers, and fears about intubation.

 “As clinicians, we can always find space to hope with our patients and their families,” he said. “So now, years later when I sit with a terrified and grieving family and they tell me they hope their loved one gets better, I remember Carlos’ mother’s eyes piercing mine ... and I know how to respond: ‘I hope so, too.’ And I do.”

Please consider giving hope to EPC this Christmas Season! The Canada Post strike is causing the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition financial distress. (EPC Donation Link). Thank you to all who have responded to our pleas.

More articles on HOPE.

• Psychiatrists: Do we offer hope or do we offer death? (Link). 
• Abandonment. That's what euthanasia is all about (Link).
• Jeanette Hall. I say NO to assisted suicide. (Link).

Australian Murder acquittal raises serious questions

This article was published by HOPE Australia on April 29, 2021.

By Branka van der Linden, Director, HOPE

New South Wales woman Barbara Eckersley has been found not guilty of murder, and guilty only of the lesser charge of manslaughter, after putting lethal drugs in the soup given to her mother.

92-year-old Botanist Mary White died in her nursing home in August 2018, after eating the soup into which her daughter, Barbara Eckersley, had laced with drugs that are used to euthanize animals, leftover from Eckersley’s time as a wildlife volunteer.

The drugs – which Eckersley had kept for many years – were slipped into her mother Mary’s food without Mary realizing. She died shortly after the meal.

Testifying in court last week, Eckersley denied intending to kill her mother. According to the ABC report, Eckersley said: "I was intending only to make her comfortable for the time she was in my care."

That Eckersley didn’t intend to kill her mother is obviously an explanation the jury accepted, hence the manslaughter conviction (rather than murder.)

But one is left to ask how they came to that conclusion.

After all, Eckersley had kept the euthanasia drugs for years after she ceased her voluntary position as a wildlife volunteer. She took them to the nursing home where her mother was living. She poured them into her soup and then allowed her mother to eat. She also failed to tell the police that she had done so when they interviewed her about her mother’s death.

How did the jury decide that Eckersley only intended to make her mother comfortable, or did they turn a blind eye because Mary was 92 and had suffered a stroke?

What challenges does Mary’s death and Eckersley’s acquittal of murder charges have to say about the impending euthanasia debate in NSW?

Proposed assisted suicide regimes allow for lethal drugs to be kept in a person’s home, until they are taken at a time of their own choosing. But the Eckersley case has exposed how easy it is for lethal drugs to be slipped into someone’s food without their knowledge or consent.

It also shows how juries are reluctant to convict on murder in these circumstances.

Alarmingly, a video of Mary “agitated and distressed, barely able to move, except to wipe her eyes” was played to the jury as part of Eckersley’s defense; as if somehow, Mary’s frail state was relevant to whether or not her daughter intended to kill her.

The outcome of this case is a foreshadowing of how juries might treat breaches of euthanasia and assisted suicide “safeguards” if these laws are introduced in NSW.

Attention now turns to the sentencing, which will reveal how the NSW judicial system views the involuntary death of the elderly at the hands of another.

Western Australian doctor recommends 'kill clinics.'

This article was published by Hope Australia on October 16, 2019.

While the suggestion that specialized “kill clinics” should be established to implement the government’s proposed euthanasia regime might sound shocking, their creation would be entirely consistent with the Bill currently before the WA Legislative Council, as well as the experience in overseas jurisdictions where euthanasia and assisted suicide have been legalised.

Dr Mal Hodsdon, a long-serving GP based in Kalgoorlie expressed his concerns that euthanasia and assisted suicide “goes against the grain” of the Hippocratic Oath taken by doctors and called putting the onus on a GP to become complicit in killing someone “a step too far.”

His radical solution is to establish a clear distinction between doctors who heal and those who kill by establishing specific death centres within the state. “I wouldn’t be prescribing the medication they need but I would be more than happy to refer them to a kill clinic at the Kalgoorlie Hospital,” he said.

While this solution might sound shocking, the legislative regime that passed through the WA Legislative Assembly and is now before the Legislative Council will pave the way for dedicated kill clinics to pop up around the state.

The doctors within these clinics would not have to have specialist qualifications in any of the terminal illnesses with which their patients may be suffering, because the proposed euthanasia laws do not require a doctor signing off on the eligibility of a patient for euthanasia have any specialised training in the illness of their patient.

A patient could also come to a ‘kill clinic’ as a one-stop shop, because the draft legislation does not require the two physicians required to sign off on a euthanasia request to be independent of each other.

Given that Dr Hodsdon also told media that he had not spoken to a GP who was in favour of euthanasia and assisted suicide, dedicated ‘kill clinics’ could even be quite profitable, given the lack of competition from doctors unwilling to contaminate their practice of healing with the prescription and administration of lethal drugs.

The notion of specialist ‘kill clinics’ or at the very least, specialist death doctors, can be inferred from the statistics in Oregon, which has had an assisted suicide regime in place for two decades.

The latest statistics from Oregon reveal that the median time of the patient-physician relationship in an assisted suicide is 10 weeks, indicating that, for the most part, the doctors who are signing off on assisted suicide are not those who have an existing relationship with the patient, but those who are specially sought out to authorize a patient’s death and prescribe them with lethal drugs. In some cases, the patient-physician relationship lasted only one week and one physician alone wrote 35 prescriptions for death-inducing drugs in a single year!

This is consistent with the most recent report from Washington State, which revealed that in 50 per cent of deaths, the doctor who prescribed the lethal drugs had known the patient for less than six months and that in some cases (the number of which was not reported), the length of the doctor-patient relationship was less than one week.

Kill clinics staffed by specialist death doctors are par for the course in states that legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide. And it will become par for the course in WA if the Legislative Council doesn’t reject this Bill.

Disturbing trends revealed in latest Washington State assisted suicide stats.

This article was published by HOPE Australia on August 9, 2019.

The most recent statistics for Washington State’s assisted suicide laws demonstrate what we have seen in jurisdiction after jurisdiction that have passed these laws: a dramatic increase in assisted suicide deaths, the emergence of “specialist” assisted suicide doctors, the lack of psychological care… it’s an all-too-familiar story.

An increase in assisted suicide deaths

In the ten years since the law has passed, the number of assisted suicides has increased by 300 per cent. It is a similar trend to what we have seen in other jurisdictions where assisted suicide has been legalised. What begins as promised “limited use” expands to become a much more common cause of death.

• Nearly 25% more assisted suicide deaths in 2018.

Inadequate pain control or concern about it does not motivate requests

As we see consistently in the statistics from Oregon, inadequate pain control or concern about it is not in the top 5 reasons patients requested assisted suicide. In Washington in 2018, the top five reasons that a patient requested assisted suicide were:

• A loss of autonomy;
• Being less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable;
• A loss of dignity;
• Being a burden on family, friends and caregivers; and
• Losing control of bodily functions.

Assisted suicide advocates often claim that these laws are needed to avoid pain that cannot be relieved, but consistently, pain is not a motivating concern for patients.

Financial considerations play into the decision

Almost one in ten patients cite the financial implications of treatment as a reason for requesting assisted suicide. If governments were committed to providing genuine end-of-life choices, then we would not be seeing a significant number of patients asking for lethal drugs because they cannot afford treatment.

Almost no psychological treatment is provided

According to the data, only 4 per cent of patients were referred for psychological or psychiatric evaluation before being given lethal drugs. Despite the significant psychological impact of being diagnosed with a terminal illness, and the evidence which shows the positive impact that treatment for depression can have on a patient’s acceptance of treatment options, it is alarming that only a tiny percentage of patients are referred for psychological or psychiatric assessment.

The rise of “specialist” assisted suicide doctors

In 2018, in 50 per cent of deaths, the doctor who prescribed the lethal drugs had known the patient for less than six months. The majority of cases, it seems, do not involve a long-term relationship between the doctor and patient.

Even more alarming, in some cases (the number of which was not reported), the length of the doctor-patient relationship was less than one week. Less than one week. This is evidence that there are doctors available who are willing to sign off on lethal drugs without having any meaningful relationship of care with the patient involved.

The latest data from Washington State is a reminder that assisted suicide laws follow a similar theme… expansion of use, lack of psychological and even medical care, and a true lack of end-of-life “choices.”

Being Rich and Famous Doesn't Protect You From Elder Abuse

The following article was published  by HOPE Australia on May 30, 2019

Stan Lee literally made superheroes.

A comic book writer, he was responsible for the creation of characters like Spiderman, the X-Men, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Thor and the Hulk. Generations and generations of comic book fans lined up at conventions to receive his autograph.

He was rich and famous but, at 95 years of age, he was also a vulnerable old man.

Police allege that after Lee’s wife of 69 years, Joan, passed away in 2017, Lee’s manager, Keya Morgan, became close to him and attempted to exert influence and control over his life and finances.

Morgan was arrested last week on charges that include theft, forgery, fraud and false imprisonment. In other words, Morgan was charged with elder abuse.

Stories suggest that Morgan changed Lee’s phone number in an attempt to distance him from family and friends, would use Lee’s macular degeneration as an excuse to read and respond to all of Lee’s emails, and attempted to control his financial affairs.

While most elder abuse occurs in private, there were articles reporting the potential abuse in the months before Lee’s death in November 2018, but even this exposure did not protect him from being manipulated.

Lee’s story demonstrates how easily the elderly can be manipulated.

An investigation from The Hollywood Reporter records a declaration signed by Lee stated that three men with bad intentions, Morgan included, were seeking to gain control over Lee’s assets, property and money.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, when Morgan learned that the news outlet had obtained a copy of the declaration, he filmed a video of Lee denying its contents.

The full video is below:

Despite the denials in the video, Morgan was arrested and charged six months after Lee’s death. But the video’s existence begs the question, if a person can make a statement in the presence of their lawyer saying one thing, and film a video retracting the statement shortly thereafter, how is anyone able to know for certain their true wishes?

If elder abuse can happen under media spotlight, to someone who – even in his 90s – attracted crowds to see him, then how can we safeguard elderly Australians against it?

11-year-old with inoperable brain tumor is cured.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Roxli Doss

Doctors  can't explain how an 11-year-old girl from Hays County Texas was cured from an inoperable brain tumor. According to Fox News:

In June, doctors told Roxli Doss she had an inoperable brain tumor called diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, or DIPG, KVUE reports. 

According to doctors, the disease is “very rare” and causes a “decreased ability to swallow, sometimes vision loss, decreased ability to talk, eventually difficulty with breathing,” said Dr. Virginia Harrod with Dell Children’s Medical Center. 

The little girl went through weeks of radiation and all her parents, Gena and Scott Doss, could do is pray for a miracle. 

And they got it. 

“When I first saw Roxli’s MRI scan, it was actually unbelievable,” said Dr. Harrod. “The tumor is undetectable on the MRI scan, which is really unusual.” 

“[Doctors] at Dell Children’s, Texas Children’s, at Dana-Farber, at John Hopkins, and MD Anderson, all agreed it was DIPG,” said Scott Doss. 

And now with no trace of the tumor, the family is thanking God. 

The family tells KVUE they will continue to watch her closely and continue to undergo treatments as a precaution.

Most people ask for assisted suicide because they have given up hope or they fear for their future. 

Roxli's story helps us continue having hope.

Euthanasia Advocate Backs Convicted Husband

This article was published by HOPE Australia on December 6, 2018

Euthanasia advocates have shown how far they would push euthanasia and assisted suicide laws if legalised in Queensland, giving no weight to financial motivations for helping someone to take their own life.

Last month, a judge sentenced Queensland’s Graham Robert Morant to ten years in prison for counselling his wife to kill herself, and then assisting her to do so.  He found that the motive for the crime was the $1.4 million that he stood to receive under insurance policies he had taken out in her name.

I

Jennifer Morant

n sentencing Morant to ten years imprisonment, Justice Davis sent a message to the community about the gravity of the crime of counselling a person to commit suicide, commenting that it was even more serious than assisting a person to do so.

Despite the clearly shocking nature of the crime and its motive, euthanasia advocates have sprung to his defence, calling the sentence “totally inappropriate.”

Bizarrely, Exit International’s founder Philip Nitschke argued that Morant’s actions of counselling and assisting his vulnerable wife to suicide in order to inherit $1.4 million an “act of love.”

According to the ABC, Nitschke said:

"Exit staff remember Jenny as being lovingly cared for by her husband, who was considered to be as kind, considerate and as compassionate as any husband could be… The severity of the sentencing for this act of love is totally inappropriate."

Kind, considerate, compassionate.  That’s how euthanasia advocates describe a man who a court found spent years encouraging his wife to take her own life and helping her to do so in order to financially gain from her death.

The real agenda of euthanasia advocates is clear.  That they are willing to hail as a ‘loving husband’ a financially-motivated man who a jury found – beyond reasonable doubt – to have counselled and aided his wife (who was not terminally ill) to take her own life shows how far they are wanting to extend the reach of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Any safeguards included by Queensland legislators won’t be welcomed by euthanasia advocates; they will be constantly trying to undermine them so that the Graham Morant’s of the world not only get through, but are hailed as kind, considerate, compassionate husbands.

Morant will appeal his conviction, using emails allegedly sent from his wife to Exit International as evidence that she was determined to die.  He will also appeal the length of his sentence.

• Australian man convicted of assisting his wife's suicide for $1.4 million.

Medical professionals have resigned due to euthanasia laws.

This article was published by HOPE Australia on February 2, 2018

In Belgium and the Netherlands, medical professionals are resigning in considerable numbers due to the lack of regulation surrounding the practice of euthanasia. This phenomenon is specifically peaking in the palliative care field, as nurses and doctors find their roles reduced to that of reluctant executioners.

Professor Benoit Beuselinck, a consultant oncologist, has been studying the corrupting effect of legalised euthanasia on Belgian medical care for years. He writes that hospital doctors, to avoid having to administer a lethal injection, will refer elderly or ill patients to a palliative care unit. The assumption is that, since palliative care professionals already deal with end-of-life issues, they will be more equipped to handle such a procedure.

However, this is far from the case. Instead, it has effectively driven away highly trained personnel, leaving palliative care units minimally staffed:

“Some Belgian palliative care units that have opened their doors to patients requesting euthanasia have seen nurses and social workers leaving the unit because they were disappointed that they could no longer offer palliative care to their patients in an appropriate way.” 

“They were upset that their function was reduced to preparing patients and their families for lethal injections.”

But medical professionals are not just upset about the change in job description. For many of them, euthanasia laws pose a moral quandary. According to Willems Lemmens, member of the Belgian Bioethics Advisory Committee:

More and more doctors are "testifying to the moral pressure they are experiencing. Since euthanasia is increasingly perceived by the general public as a right over the death of an individual and family members, the practitioners' therapeutic freedom and conscience are actually being put to the test".

Berna van Baarsen

The Netherlands faces similar challenges, as the definition of euthanasia is being more loosely interpreted in order to include dementia patients. During an interview, Berna van Baarsen, a Dutch euthanasia regulator, explained her reasoning for quitting her profession:

"I do not believe that a written declaration of intent can replace an oral request for incapacitated patients with advanced dementia…" 

“In people with a terminal illness like cancer, in whom euthanasia has already been agreed but who suddenly ended up in a coma because of their illness, that's fair.” 

"However, dementia is a very different kind of ailment. That disease is more erratic and patients often live longer. A lot of things can happen during that period. For instance, a patient might say that she would want euthanasia if she no longer recognises her relatives."

"This could happen. But at a next visit she can still recognize her partner or her children. What is the right moment to grant euthanasia?"

We anticipated that euthanasia and assisted suicide laws would drastically impact the most vulnerable of society, as in the cases that Berna van Baarsen described above. It is taking its toll.

Furthermore, with doctors and nurses fleeing their professions, the consequences of legalised euthanasia have started to affect all Belgian and Dutch citizens as their system of care crumbles before their eyes.

The fact that those who were once willing participants in euthanasia are fleeing because of how it is being practiced demonstrates just how dangerous and uncontrollable the process is.

It lends credence to the fact that, ultimately, euthanasia laws hurt everyone, regardless of their status. With this in mind, we must oppose this policy in all of our states and let our politicians know that legalised killing will never be safe.

Euthanasia and Elder Abuse

The following article was published by HOPE Australia on January 9, 2018

Helen Polley

One of the greatest dangers that we face as Australians, now that euthanasia is legalised in Victoria, is making the elderly feel as if they are a burden on society. There is an obsession in our culture with being young, and the older generations can tend to be neglected. The propagation of euthanasia further demeans the value of the lives of elderly Australians. As Senator for Tasmania, Helen Polley stated:

Voluntary euthanasia cannot promote the dignity or humanity of vulnerable older Australians in an environment in which our elderly feel undervalued, ignored and forgotten. Instead, it further will entrench ageist views, desensitise us to euthanasia and ultimately lead to a devaluation of life and premature death.

Elder abuse is a major concern, with a report last year from the Australian Law Reform Commission recommending detailed study into the prevalence of elder abuse in this country. If an individual is unable to take care of themselves, has reduced decision-making capabilities and/or financial management issues, their vulnerability to be pressured into euthanasia by family members or others responsible for their care increases.

Given that there is currently no robust system that has effectively prevented elder abuse, there is no reason to believe that adequate safeguards can be put in place for euthanasia.

Australia has an aging population; by 2050, more than one in four Australians will be 65 or older, and we need to be making good decisions about how we will treat them in their later years.

We say it often, but the truth remains, Australia needs better palliative care. To quote Polley:

If we want to change the culture of dying we should be looking at our end-of-life care system because it’s brimming with untapped potential but significantly underfunded. People should be able to rest assured knowing the end-of-life care and support they deserve will be there for them. We must not let voluntary euthanasia take the attention and resources away from this.

Under no circumstances should an individual feel the need to opt for euthanasia because they don’t have confidence that they will receive adequate end-of-life care.

Belgian psychiatrists, psychologists and academics demand debate on euthanasia for psychological suffering.

This article was published on the HOPE Australia website on November 20, 2017

On October 31, 43 Belgian psychiatrists, psychologists, and academics published an open letter demanding national debate on the issue of euthanasia and mental illness. These experts in the field state that the current law is too vague, and is resulting in many uncalled-for deaths.

Wim Distelmans, the head of the Belgian euthanasia commission, has said that prominent psychiatrist Lieve Thienpont has approved the requests for assisted suicide from many patients on the basis of psychological suffering, allowing patients to be euthanised illegally. The issue did not get much exposure in Belgium until international sources began reporting it.

Thienpont denied the claims, blaming her patients:

These patients are very desperate, stressed. They say things that are not always correct.

The letter from psychiatrists, psychologists and academics came out in response to Theinpoint and those who approve euthanasia for psychological suffering, noting that there cannot be a real objective test when it comes to the assessment of what constitutes “unbearable” psychological suffering:

Euthanasia because of unbearable and futile psychological suffering is very problematic. It is about people who are not terminal and, in principle, could live for many years. Therefore, extreme caution is appropriate both clinically and legally. The essence of the case seems to us that in estimating the hopelessness of one's suffering, the subjective factor cannot be eliminated ...

The solution, say the advocates, is more stringent and specific regulations to protect at-risk Belgians:

The law does not indicate the exact criteria for unbearable and psychological suffering. Any complaint about any carelessness in this area will only end in a legal ‘no man’s land.’ 

More and more, no matter how many criteria there are, it depends simply on how an individual psychiatrist interprets or tests them, aided by the doctor's own assumptions and the patient's account of his symptoms.

The legalisation of assisted suicide in Belgium has put psychiatrists and other physicians in a difficult position in terms of their relationship with their patients. How can a doctor vow to preserve life while at the same time allow for assisted suicide? How can a medical professional whose role is to treat mental illness also deem it as a reason someone should be given lethal drugs? One experienced psychiatrist described the extraordinary tension the law places on their profession:

Strangely enough, people with less severe and readily treatable mental disorders-such as borderline personality disorders-request euthanasia more often than seriously ill patients. The offer really creates the questions. Euthanasia has become a new symptom. Often it’s a cry for help: 'Am I still worth living, or are you giving up on me?' But it is a symptom with particularly dangerous consequences... 

If you refuse to take the euthanasia question seriously, you put the relationship with the patient at risk and lose your trust... 

Since the euthanasia law there has been some kind of madness in our work. After the threat of suicide, for which you must be constantly on guard as a psychiatrist, there is now the threat of euthanasia.

If mental health professionals are confused about how they must discharge their obligations to a patient requesting euthanasia, how can anyone be clear about the law surrounding assisted suicide for psychological suffering?

• Belgium refuses to prosecute who killed depressed woman.
• Is euthanasia for psychological suffering changing Belgian medicine?

New South Wales Australia defeats euthanasia bill.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Congratulations to HOPE Australia and all of the caring people who are standing for the protection of vulnerable Australians.

The New South Wales (NSW) Australia euthanasia bill was defeated by a vote of 20 to 19 in the Upper House of parliament.

ABC News reported that MP's in NSW were given a free conscience vote on the euthanasia bill. According to ABC News:

Christian Democrat Fred Nile said legalisation was a dangerous move. 

"How will such a bill, once passed, impact on how we see value in life?" he said. 

Liberal backbencher Taylor Martin argued euthanasia was comparable to re-introducing the death penalty. 

"One of the main reasons why Australia stopped the barbaric practise of capital punishment is because it is so final," he said. 

"We must consider this bill through a similar lens."

Similar to the experience in the United States, when elected representatives examine the language of the legislation, they will often change their minds and vote against the bill. 

Lawyer, Margaret Dore, from Choice is an Illusion wrote an excellent evaluation of the NSW euthanasia bill.

The euthanasia bill in Victoria Australia is being debated in the Senate. I HOPE that the Senators in Victoria will examine the language of the bill and vote against it.

Australian Oncologist speaks out against assisted suicide.

This article was published by HOPE Australia on October 26, 2017

In a moving article, a cancer doctor recently voiced her concerns about the dangers of offering assisted suicide to patients. Director of the Familial Cancer Centre at Monash Health, Dr Marion Harris describes the difficulties her patients have experienced, and how many of them wanted to give up at some point in their diagnosis, but persevered.

Dr Harris said that the initial shock of the diagnosis is usually the most difficult for her patients:

When a patient seeks assisted dying, it is often when they are first told they have a limited life expectancy and before they are truly unwell. They are so distressed by such difficult news that they anticipate what is to come and can be consumed with fear and an urge to regain control.

Dr Marian Harris

However, she said once they make it past that initial shock:

A request to die is uncommon, and is often driven by poorly controlled pain or nausea, as well as fear, loss of function and hopelessness. Usually when pain and other symptoms are under control, good nursing care is on hand, and psychological support has been provided, patients no longer want their death to be hastened.

She expressed her many concerns with the lack of adequate provisions in the law. From a doctor’s perspective, it can be difficult to accurately gauge life expectancy. There is no psychiatric assessment or specialist palliative care assessment required under the Victorian model. Patients are even able to access assisted suicide without consulting their treating doctor or informing their family member. The entire process can be completed in as quickly as ten days.

Additionally, she points out the contradiction of legalising suicide for some individuals, while trying to prevent it in others.

Her greatest fear is that, if assisted suicide is normalised, patients will feel pushed towards it.

Dr Harris believes that the best solution to care for patients facing a terminal illness is to ensure that they receive strong emotional support and proper palliative care. She says we really should be focused on providing better care, because thousands of Victorians die each year without proper palliative care. In her experience, patients given proper care want to fight until the end, and the process does not have to be difficult for the patient and their family.

In summary, Harris says it best:

It is not the solution to the complex problems people face at the end of life, and it creates more problems and injustices than it solves.

• Australian Medical Association opposes bill to legalize euthanasia. 

Former Australian Prime Minister warns against assisted suicide.

This article was published by HOPE Australia on October 24

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating has issued a statement warning against the passage of Victoria’s assisted suicide bill. His remarks apply equally to the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill which is before the New South Wales Legislative Council.

Mr Keating warned of the pressure legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia would put on people to choose to die prematurely to relieve their family of the burden of care:

[I]t is "commonplace" for patients to tell doctors in front of their loved ones that they have no wish to be a burden on families. 

Once this bill is passed the expectations of patients and families will change. The culture of dying, despite certain and intense resistance, will gradually permeate into our medical, health, social and institutional arrangements. It stands for everything a truly civil society should stand against. A change of this kind will affect our entire community not just a small number of dying patients. It is fatuous to assert that patients will not feel under pressure once this bill becomes law to nominate themselves for termination.

The former prime minister dismissed as hollow utopianism the claim that assisted suicide laws can have rigorous safeguards:

An alarming aspect of the debate is the claim that safeguards can be provided at every step to protect the vulnerable. This claim exposes the bald utopianism of the project – the advocates support a bill to authorise termination of life in the name of compassion, while at the same time claiming they can guarantee protection of the vulnerable, the depressed and the poor. 

No law and no process can achieve that objective. This is the point. If there are doctors prepared to bend the rules now, there will be doctors prepared to bend the rules under the new system. Beyond that, once termination of life is authorised the threshold is crossed.

Mr Keating also stressed the dangerous pro-suicide message an assisted suicide bill would send to the community, including vulnerable young people, explaining that assisted bills send:

the wrong message to people contemplating suicide and undermines suicide prevention efforts. How could this not be the case? Suicide is the leading cause of death among people aged 15-44 and the second leading cause of death among people aged 45-54. International studies offer no support for the view that legalising euthanasia is associated with a decrease in non-assisted suicides.

He warned legislators not to dismiss opposition as religious. Instead what is at stake is:

the civilisational ethic that should be at the heart of our secular society. 

The concerns I express are shared by people of any religion or no religion. In public life it is the principles that matter. They define the norms and values of a society and in this case the principles concern our view of human life itself. It is a mistake for legislators to act on the deeply held emotional concerns of many when that involves crossing a threshold that will affect the entire society in perpetuity.

Victorian and New South Wales MPs, regardless of their party affiliation, should heed this very insightful warning from former Prime Minister Paul Keating.

Lessons from Canada. Don't legalize assisted suicide.

This article was published by HOPE Australia on October 18.

Candice Lewis

Candice Lewis is a 25 year old Canadian woman who happens to have cerebral palsy.

In September 2016 Candice went to the emergency room at Charles S. Curtis Memorial Hospital in St. Anthony after having seizures.

Dr. Aaron Heroux told her she was very sick and likely to die soon. He offered her assisted suicide.

The doctor also proposed assisted suicide for Candice to her mother Sheila Elson.

This offer was repeated despite both Candice and her mother making it clear that this was not an option Candice would consider. Dr Heroux told Sheila she was being selfish by not encouraging her daughter to choose assisted suicide.

Candice describes how bad it made her feel that a doctor was offering her assisted suicide.

More than twelve months later Candice has recovered well and her health is much improved.

Candice hasn’t been having any seizures, is now able to feed herself, walk with assistance, use her iPad. She is more alert, energetic and communicative.

She was able to walk down the aisle as a bridesmaid at her sister’s wedding in August 2017. She is doing what she loves most, painting and being with her family.

Candice and her mother Sheila have been interviewed by Kevin Dunn, who is producing a film on euthanasia and assisted suicide called Fatal Flaws. The interview can be viewed here.

There are several take home lessons from Candice’s experience:

• Doctors can get the prognosis wrong. Candice was told she was dying but is flourishing twelve months later. A wrong prognosis can lead to assisted suicide or euthanasia. A life can be thrown away needlessly;
• People with a disability already suffer discrimination in health care. When assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal, people with a disability are more at risk of being offered death as a solution because doctors and others consider that they would be better off dead;
• Once doctors are authorised by the law to provide assisted suicide and euthanasia some of them will feel empowered to offer it to anyone they think would be better off dead. This undermines patients’ trust in doctors and can cause great distress.

Legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia puts people at risk of being wrongfully killed due to errors in prognosis or discrimination. It subverts the nature of the medical profession and destroys trust in doctors.

• Fatal Flaws Film: Candice was pressured to die by euthanasia.
• Candice was pressured to die by euthanasia in Canada.

An Open Letter to the Members of Parliament opposing assisted suicide by Australian Palliative Care Professionals

This article was published by HOPE Australia on October 17, 2017

We, the undersigned Australian Palliative Medicine professionals, do not support the introduction of medically assisted suicide or euthanasia in the states of Victoria and New South Wales. We are also writing to address claims made about Palliative Care by assisted suicide advocates, including Mr Andrew Denton, to the public and in the media. We do not intend this response as an attack on Mr Denton, and wish him well with a good recovery in his present illness.

We work every day with people who are seriously ill and dying, to support them and their families and carers when burdened by their illness or condition, and in their time of need.

Although the standard of Australian Palliative Care services, whether in the home or in the medical setting, are currently rated second in the world, this is not widely known in our community, and these services and our care are not well understood.

Our work is a good news story that should provide the public with great confidence.

Instead, in the current debates on euthanasia and assisted suicide, we frequently observe that public confidence in Palliative Care is being actively and deliberately undermined. Assertions include that Palliative Care doctors either cannot or will not relieve suffering and that assisted suicide, and in some cases euthanasia, is needed to address this.

This is simply false.

Australian health professionals say NO to assisted suicide.

This was published by HOPE Australia on October 11, 2017

From around Australia, 383 health professionals have signed a statement rejecting assisted suicide and euthanasia, reaffirming the role of doctors, nurses and allied health as saving lives and providing real care and support. ​

Read their statement below:

We endorse the views of the World Medical Association that physician assisted suicide and euthanasia are unethical, even if made legal. We endorse the Australian Medical Association position that "doctors should not be involved in interventions that have as their primary intention the ending of a person’s life." 

We also endorse the World Health Organisation definition of Palliative Care, which has been re-affirmed by the Australia & New Zealand Society of Palliative Medicine, that Palliative Care aims to deliver impeccable holistic and person centred care without the aim of foreshortening life. 

We are committed to the concept of death with dignity and comfort, including the provision of effective pain relief and excellence in Palliative Care. 

We uphold the right of a patient to decline treatment. 

We know that the provision of pain relief, even if it may unintentionally hasten death of the patient, is ethical and legal. Equally the withdrawal or withholding of futile treatment in favour of Palliative Care is also ethical and legal. 

We believe that crossing the line to intentionally assist a person to suicide would fundamentally weaken the doctor-patient relationship, which is based on trust and respect. The power of the clinician/patient relationship cannot be over-estimated. 

We are especially concerned with protecting vulnerable people who can feel they have become a burden to others, and are committed to supporting those who find their own life situations a heavy burden. We believe such laws would undermine the public perception of the dignity and value of human life in all its different stages and conditions. Government focus should be on the compassionate and equitable provision of Social Services, Health Care and Palliative Care. 

Doctors and Healthcare Professionals are not necessary for the legalisation or practice of assisted suicide. Their involvement is being sought only to provide a cloak of medical legitimacy. Leave doctors, nurses and allied health professionals to focus on saving lives and providing real care and support for those who are suffering.

Link to the names of the Health professionals who signed the statement.

Dangers of Assisted Suicide: The Latest Data from Washington State

This article was published by HOPE Australia on October 5, 2017

Washington State.

Washington State’s Death With Dignity Act, based on Oregon’s, came into operation on 9 March 2009.

The latest annual report with data from 2016 was published in September 2017.

This latest data confirms that once assisted suicide is legalised use of it increases from year to year, seemingly without limit.

In 2010, the first full calendar year of operation, some 87 prescriptions for lethal drugs were provided under the Act. By 2016 this had nearly tripled (285%) to 248.

Prescriptions for lethal drugs increased by 15% from 2015 to 2016.

Deaths from lethal drugs prescribed under the Act have nearly quadrupled (376%) from 51 in 2010 to 192 in 2016, increasing by 13.6% from 2015 to 2016 alone.

• Washington State 2015 assisted suicide report - assisted deaths increase by 31.7%.

Not all of those who are prescribed lethal drugs end up taking them. Some die of natural causes. There is no tracking of lethal drugs that are not used by those for whom they are prescribed so these lethal drugs are available in the community and could be used accidentally or intentionally to cause death. Of the 1184 prescriptions for lethal drugs issued since 2009 only 846 (71%) have been reported as used leaving some 338 doses of lethal drugs unaccounted for in the community. 

Some 59% of those for whom a prescription for lethal drugs was provided did not cite any concern about pain control as a reason for asking for the prescription. 

However, 87% cited concerns about loss of autonomy and 51% cited concerns about being a burden on family, friends or caregivers.

Significantly, 8% cited concerns about the financial implications of treatment.

Only 5% of those given a lethal prescription were referred to a psychiatrist or psychological for evaluation. 

In some cases the prescribing doctor knew the patient for less than a week before writing the prescription, and in more than half the cases (53%) the doctor knew the patient for less than 25 weeks.

Although the Act specifies that only persons with “six months or less to live” may request lethal doses of medication from a physician, the data shows that in each year between 5% and 17% of those who die after requesting a lethal dose do so more than 25 weeks later, with one person in 2012 dying nearly 3 years (150 weeks) later, one person in 2015 dying nearly two years later (95 weeks) and one person in 2016 dying more than two years (112 weeks) later. 

In 2016, one person took 11 hours to lose consciousness after ingesting the lethal dose and one person took 22 hours to die after ingesting the lethal dose. In 2013, one person took 3 hours to lose consciousness after ingesting the lethal dose and one person took 41 hours (1 day and 17 hours) to die after ingesting the dose. In 2015, one person took 72 minutes (1 hour and 12 minutes) hours to lose consciousness after ingesting the lethal dose, and one person took 30 hours (1 day and 6 hours) to die after ingesting the dose. In 2009, two people awakened after initially losing consciousness. In 2014, one person suffered seizures after ingesting the lethal medication.

At least 16 patients have regurgitated the lethal medication. Seven of these cases occurred in 2016 alone.

This may be related to the use of new experimental cocktails of lethal drugs being used since the price of the previously used drugs, secobarbital and pentobarbital (Nembutal), escalated.

The first of the new cocktails is a mix of phenobarbital, chloral hydrate and morphine sulfate. It was used in 88 cases in 2015 and 44 cases in 2016.

It has been reported to be very caustic and to cause a profound burning in the throat.

The second experimental cocktail includes morphine sulfate, propranolol, diazepam, digoxin and a buffer suspension. It has been used in 2 cases in 2015 and 22 cases in 2016.

There is no requirement under the Act for a physician or any other person to be present when the lethal dose is ingested.

Since 2009, there have been 200 cases where no health-care provider was present when the lethal dose was ingested and a further 104 cases where it is not known if a health-care provider was present.

In other words, in some 304 cases, people have died ingesting a dose of lethal medication, legally prescribed under Washington law, and nobody knows whether the person freely ingested the lethal dose or they were cajoled, coerced or forced to do so by another person.