Queensland euthanasia report indicates another 26% increase in deaths.

This report was published by the Australian Care Alliance.

Euthanasia and assistance to suicide became legal in Queensland on 1 January 2023 under the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2021.

Numbers

A report on the first six months of legalisation states that there were 245 deaths under the Act - 139 deaths (56.73%) by “practitioner administration”, that is euthanasia and 106 by “self-administration”, that is assisted suicide.

245 deaths in six months represents about 1.31% of all deaths - higher than WA after one year and twice Victoria's rate after 4 years.

A second report, covering 1 July 2023 - 30 June 2024 states that there were 793 deaths under the Act - 532 deaths (67%) by “practitioner administration”, that is euthanasia and 261 (33%) by “self-administration”, that is assisted suicide.

This represents about 1.9% of all deaths in 2023/24 – a 45% increase on the rate for the first six months of operation.

A quarterly report covering 1 July 2024 - 30 September 2024 states that there were 241 deaths under the Act – representing 2.4% of all deaths in Queensland in that period, a further 26% increase on the rate for 2023-24. 

One relevant factor in this higher rate compared to other Australian states could be that the eligibility criteria in Queensland include a prognosis that the condition is " expected to cause death within 12 months" whereas it is six months (except for neuro-degenerative conditions) in the other states.

Practitioners

Registered nurses are allowed to administer the prescribed lethal substance to cause a person’s death. 172 registered nurses have done the training (compared to 187 medical practitioners and 22 nurse practitioners).

Of the 120 practitioners involved in 2023-24 as coordinating or consulting practitioners 47 of them were involved in 21 or more cases (that is on average at least one case every 17 days).

20 nurses and nurse practitioners administered a lethal substance to a person in 2023-24, compared with 51 medical practitioners.

Of these 71 State trained professional killers, 28 are serial killers, having killed five or more people each in 2023-24.

Prognosis

Unlike other United States and Australian jurisdictions which limit assisted suicide (and, in Australian jurisdictions, euthanasia) to those with a prognosis of 6 months or less to expected death, the Queensland law allows access to those with a prognosis of expected death within 12 months.

This increases the likelihood of wrongful deaths from errors in prognosis.

Refusing treatment and symptom management

The Queensland Government explicitly states that those seeking euthanasia or assistance to suicide may meet the eligibility criteria of a terminal illness that is causing suffering by refusing medical treatment and symptom management.

This makes it clear that this regime is about facilitating the intentional ending of life and not about relieving unavoidable suffering at the end of life. Under these provisions people with otherwise non-terminal conditions such as a young person with insulin dependent diabetes could be euthanased.

Timeframe

The law generally requires a nine-day period between a first and final request but this can be waived if two medical practitioners agree the person may die or lose decision-making capacity within that period.

In 2023-24, 275 people had the nine-day waiting period waived. This is 34.7 % of those who died under the Act.

Where a person is assessed as likely to imminently losing decision-making capacity there must be a real doubt as to the person ‘s current decision-making capacity so this provision increases the likelihood of wrongful deaths from lack of decision-making capacity.

Government facilitation of suicide and euthanasia

The Queensland Government has established Queensland Voluntary Assisted Dying Support Service which will only provide information and assistance on suicide and euthanasia and will not provide any assistance or information on “any other health concerns, including your underlying conditions”.

The QVAD-Support service will directly link a person seeking to end their life with a medical practitioner willing to help them do so.

Any registered health practitioner who has a conscientious objection to facilitating the suicide of or euthanasing his or her patients must if asked by any person for such assistance or information give the person either the details of QVAD-Support Service or of a registered health practitioner willing to facilitate the person’s death.

The Queensland voluntary assisted dying pharmacy is funded to supply the lethal poisons for suicide to individuals and for euthanasia to administering medical practitioners or nurses.

Reporting

Clause 8 of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Regulations 2022 requires the Voluntary Assisted dying Board to collect some minimal information that is then required to be published in an annual report to be provided by 30 September each year.

This includes basic demographic data (age, sex and region) of applicants and data on the underlying condition as well as the number of deaths from self-administration or practitioner administration of lethal poisons prescribed under the Act.

The time between first and final request is to be reported.

No data on referrals for additional assessments of eligibility or decision-making capacity is to be collected. Nor is there any provision for reporting on complications, the time between administration of the poison and loss of consciousness, or the time between administration of the poison and death.

Given the general complication rate of 7% or higher reported from other jurisdictions this is a concerning lack of transparency that undermines any future claim that there are no problems with the practice of assistance to suicide and euthanasia in Queensland. We will never know.

No safe space

The Act imposes on all hospitals, nursing homes and residential aged care facilities in Queensland the obligation to allow suicide and euthanasia by lethal poison on their premises for any permanent resident of the facility and for any other resident where a “deciding medical practitioner” determines transferring the person for this purpose is not “reasonable”.

This is a violation of the human rights of freedom of association, freedom of religion and freedom of conscience.

The sick and elderly should be able to choose to be treated or to live in a place where no-one is intentionally killed or helped to commit suicide.

Lethal substances at large

One of the obvious risks of prescribing and supplying lethal substances to be kept in the community is that the lethal substance may be ingested by a person other than the person for whom it is prescribed.

The Queensland coroner investigated an incident, in which after a woman was prescribed lethal drugs under the Act but died in hospital before ingesting the drugs, her husband subsequently used the drugs to kill himself.

More articles about the Queensland experience with euthanasia.

• Coroner's report after man dies by taking his wife's assisted suicide drugs (Link). 
• Coroner examines case of Australian man who died after taking her assisted suicide drugs (Link).
• Man dies after taking wife's assisted suicide drugs (Link).

Australian Coroner's report after man dies from his wife's assisted suicide drugs.

Man died ingesting his wife's lethal assisted suicide drugs.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Julius Dennis reported for ABC News Australia that:

A coroner has found Queensland's voluntary assisted dying laws are not "well-considered" after an elderly man took his own life using drugs prescribed for his partner.

Coroner David O'Connell has recommended a health professional be present every time a deadly substance is administered.

Dennis reported that Coroner O'Connell criticized the assisted suicide law after a man died taking the assisted suicide poison that was prescribed for his wife. The news article states that the man's wife was approved for assisted suicide and had received the lethal poison but on May 8 she went to the hospital where she passed away before taking the lethal substance. Her husband was required to return the medication within 14 days but he died on May 16 after ingesting it.

Dennis reported the findings by Coroner O'Connell:

Mr O'Connell said the inquest established a person underwent fewer identity checks to become a contact person than he did entering a Brisbane nightclub.

"The fact that ABC had been medically diagnosed with depression and took medication was not something the VAD authorities considered, or even enquired on, when approving them to be a Contact Person. Indeed, there are simply no checks or enquiries of the Contact Person's suitability," he said.

O'Connell found further problems with the law. Dennis reported:

Mr O'Connell said the inquest heard evidence of "a number of 'near misses' … where various people have required the intervention of a health practitioner administer a supplementary IV VAD dosage to ensure a patient's death".

This included one patient who had alcohol before taking the drug and threw up some of the substance.

O'Connell concluded that there should always be a health professional present when a person takes lethal assisted suicide drugs.

Dennis concluded the article by stating:

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman said the government would consider the coroner's recommendations.

The better response is to prohibit assisted suicide. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has always warned that these laws lack effective oversight. Once a person has received the lethal poison, anyone could die taking it. Also, what happens to the lethal poison when a person dies without ingesting the lethal poison?

I wonder how often this same scenario has happened in the US? Not one of the American assisted suicide laws require oversight of the law. 

Coroner examines case of Australia man who died after taking his wife's assisted suicide drugs

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A Coroner in Brisbane Australia has opened an inquest into the death of a man who died after taking the assisted suicide drugs that were prescribed to the man's wife.

An ABC News report by Rachel Riga published on September 25, 2023 stated:

The ABC understands the man's wife had met the criteria and had been given the medication but she was admitted to hospital.

She passed away in hospital before taking the VAD substance.

Her husband was required to return the medication within 14 days but consumed it instead.

A recent article by Rex Martinich and published by AAP news Australia stated:

The Coroners Court in Brisbane today opened the inquest into the May 2023 death of a man aged in his 80s referred to by the pseudonym ABC.

ABC's name and those of his family members along with many other details surrounding his death cannot be published for legal reasons.

The substance involved in ABC's death was obtained legally after Queensland allowed voluntary assisted dying (VAD) in January 2023.

Under that law, a person can self-administer a VAD substance in a private location but they must nominate a person who will be legally required to return any unused or leftover portion within 14 days.

Coroner David O'Connell heard ABC kept the VAD substance in his home after it was no longer required for another person.

The issue of the State regulations was discussed:

O'Connell said he was concerned regulations around self-administering VAD could allow other people without a terminal illness to be physically harmed or suffer mental distress.

 

"We've got medication safety and patient autonomy; we've got to find where the pendulum swings to get the balance right," he said.

 

The nurse said VAD substances in a hospital were kept in a locked cabinet that required two keys to access but were not monitored after a patient took possession.

April Freeman, the lawyer for Queensland Health asked the nurse if pain medications in lethal amounts are ever given out. The nurse responded:

 it was not uncommon and she was not aware of health authorities having control over those drugs once they were handed to patients.

The Coroner's inquiry will continue. 

• Man dies after taking wife's assisted suicide drugs (Link).

Queensland Australia reports 245 deaths in the first 6 months of the euthanasia law

Euthanasia and assistance to suicide became legal in Queensland on 1 January 2023 under the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2021.

Numbers

A report on the first six months of legalisation states that there were 245 deaths under the Act - 139 deaths (56.73%) by “practitioner administration”, that is euthanasia and 106 by “self-administration”, that is assisted suicide.

245 deaths in six months represents about 1.29% of all deaths - higher than WA after one year and twice Victoria's rate after 4 years.

One relevant factor could be that the eligibility criteria in Queensland include prognosis that the condition is " expected to cause death within 12 months" whereas it is six months (except for neuro-degenerative conditions) in other Australian States.

Practitioners

Registered nurses are allowed to administer the prescribed lethal substance to cause a person’s death. 144 registered nurses have done the training (compared to 155 medical practitioners and 19 nurse practitioners) with 12 of these so far acting as the “administrating practitioner” (compared to 35 medical practitioners and 2 nurse practitioners).

Of the 108 practitioners so far involved in at least one case 23 have been involved in between 11 and 20 and 14 in more than 20 cases (that is on average at least one case every 8-9 days).

Prognosis

Unlike other United States and Australian jurisdictions which limit assisted suicide (and, in Australian jurisdictions, euthanasia) to those with a prognosis of 6 months or less to expected death, the Queensland law allows access to those with a prognosis of expected death within 12 months.

This increases the likelihood of wrongful deaths from errors in prognosis.

Refusing treatment and symptom management

The Queensland Government explicitly states that those seeking euthanasia or assistance to suicide may meet the eligibility criteria of a terminal illness that is causing suffering by refusing medical treatment and symptom management.

This makes it clear that this regime is about facilitating the intentional ending of life and not about relieving unavoidable suffering at the end of life. Under these provisions people with otherwise non-terminal conditions such as a young person with insulin dependent diabetes could be euthanased.

Timeframe

The law generally requires a nine-day period between a first and final request but this can be waived if two medical practitioners agree the person may die or lose decision-making capacity within that period.

The first six monthly report does not indicate how many cases involved waiving the nine-day period but did state that “the median time from first to final request was 17.5 days”.

In other jurisdictions with similar provisions this provision is frequently used to avoid any waiting period. For example, in Quebec in the period April 2021 to March 2022, 50% of people were euthanased less than 10 days after making a request. However, only 13% of people had a prognosis of less than 2 weeks to live.

Where a person is assessed as likely to imminently losing decision-making capacity there must be a real doubt as to the person ‘s current decision-making capacity so this provision increases the likelihood of wrongful deaths from lack of decision-making capacity.

Government facilitation of suicide and euthanasia

The Queensland Government has established Queensland Voluntary Assisted Dying Support Service which will only provide information and assistance on suicide and euthanasia and will not provide any assistance or information on “any other health concerns, including your underlying conditions”.

The QVAD-Support service will directly link a person seeking to end their life with a medical practitioner willing to help them do so.

Any registered health practitioner who has a conscientious objection to facilitating the suicide of or euthanasing his or her patients must if asked by any person for such assistance or information give the person either the details of QVAD-Support Service or of a registered health practitioner willing to facilitate the person’s death.

The Queensland voluntary assisted dying pharmacy is funded to supply the lethal poisons for suicide to individuals and for euthanasia to administering medical practitioners or nurses.

Reporting

Clause 8 of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Regulations 2022 requires the Voluntary Assisted dying Board to collect some minimal information that is then required to be published in an annual report to be provided by 30 September each year.

This includes basic demographic data (age, sex and region) of applicants and data on the underlying condition as well as the number of deaths from self-administration or practitioner administration of lethal poisons prescribed under the Act.

The time between first and final request is to be reported.

No data on referrals for additional assessments of eligibility or decision-making capacity is to be collected. Nor is there any provision for reporting on complications, the time between administration of the poison and loss of consciousness, or the time between administration of the poison and death.

Given the general complication rate of 7% or higher reported from other jurisdictions this is a concerning lack of transparency that undermines any future claim that there are no problems with the practice of assistance to suicide and euthanasia in Queensland. We will never know.

No safe space

The Act imposes on all hospitals, nursing homes and residential aged care facilities in Queensland the obligation to allow suicide and euthanasia by lethal poison on their premises for any permanent resident of the facility and for any other resident where a “deciding medical practitioner” determines transferring the person for this purpose is not “reasonable”.

This is a violation of the human rights of freedom of association, freedom of religion and freedom of conscience.

The sick and elderly should be able to choose to be treated or to live in a place where no-one is intentionally killed or helped to commit suicide.

Lethal substances at large

One of the obvious risks of prescribing and supplying lethal substances to be kept in the community is that the lethal substance may be ingested by a person other than the person for whom it is prescribed.

The Queensland coroner is reportedly investigating an incident, in which after a woman was prescribed lethal drugs under the Act but died in hospital before ingesting the drugs, her husband subsequently used the drugs to kill himself. 

Download  fact sheet here (Link).

More information on Queensland's euthanasia and assisted suicide experience.

• Man dies after taking wife's assisted suicide drugs (Link).
• Queensland euthanasia bill fails to protect from involuntary death (Link).

Man dies after taking wife's assisted suicide drugs

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Guardian reported  that a man in Queensland, Australia died when he ingested assisted suicide drugs prescribed for his wife.

Andrew Messenger reported on September 25 for the Guardian:

Queensland’s health minister has suggested the state may need to strengthen voluntary assisting dying (VAD) legislation after a woman’s euthanasia drugs were used by her husband after she died in hospital.

The coroner is investigating the reported incident, in which the elderly woman was approved to use the drugs at home under Queensland’s voluntary assisted dying scheme – but she died suddenly in hospital. Her husband subsequently used the drugs to kill himself.

According to Queensland law, unused lethal assisted suicide drugs are to be returned 14 days after a person's death. In this case a husband, whose wife had been approved for assisted suicide, consumed the lethal drugs.

Queensland's Health Minister, Shannon Fentiman, admits that this may have been the first time the law has been abused. 

Fentiman states:

“We will look at absolutely whether we need to strengthen the legislation about that 14-day turnaround for medication to be returned, which I suspect we will do,” she said.

“But we’re going to await the outcomes of that investigation. That investigation will also go to the coroner and I also expect the coroner will have some recommendations around that.”

An ABC News report by Rachel Riga published in September 25 states:

The ABC understands the man's wife had met the criteria and had been given the medication but she was admitted to hospital.

She passed away in hospital before taking the VAD substance.

Her husband was required to return the medication within 14 days but consumed it instead.

Messenger reported that even though the abuse of the new law has resulted in a death, Health Minister Fentiman is recommending that euthanasia be offered through telehealth: 

It also recommended amendments to the commonwealth criminal code to permit doctors to use telehealth for VAD consultations. The code is perceived to prohibit electronic transmission of prescriptions for a substance under the scheme.

Fentiman said more Queenslanders had taken up the option than in any other jurisdiction, and there had been almost no errors in the scheme’s first year.

She said the report showed the state’s system is “safe, accessible and compassionate”.

Those who oppose killing argue that legalizing euthanasia results in errors and premature deaths; euthanasia promoters respond by saying "there will be safeguards". When a person, who was not approved for assisted suicide, dies by taking another person's lethal drugs, the euthanasia promoters say there were "almost no errors."

Society needs to care not kill people.

Doctors warn: One in ten wrongful assisted suicide deaths.

This article was published by the Australian Care Alliance on September 16, 2021

Professor Paul Glare

Thoracic physician, Dr Luke Garske and Professor Paul Glare, Specialist Physician, Pain medicine have warned that under Queensland's Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2021 an estimated 10 out of 100 Queenslanders who access assistance to suicide or euthanasia will end their lives based on a wrong belief that they have a terminal illness.

As euthanasia enthusiast, comedian Andrew Denton admits "there is no guarantee ever that doctors will be 100% right".

Dr Garske and Professor Glare explain:

The Queensland Bill simplistically assumes that doctors can accurately predict how long patients with severe life limiting disease will live. It requires two doctors to agree that a patient is expected to live for less than 12 months (compared to less than 6 months in four other states). It is known that doctors are very poor at accurately predicting whether you will live less than 12 months.

At least 10% of patients predicted to live less than 12 months would have still been living in three years.

If the Queensland bill is passed, we estimate that 10 out of 100 Queenslanders who choose assisted suicide will have done so based on the wrong belief that they had a terminal illness. In contrast, in the four other states, which offer assisted suicide when you are expected to live less than 6 months, we estimate that 1 out of 100 patients will have chosen to have an assisted suicide, based on the wrong belief that they had a terminal illness.

Is it acceptable for Queenslanders to have so many extra wrongful deaths, because of an arbitrary extension of an eligibility criterion that isn’t based on expert medical advice? Why is this extra 6 months even necessary, when the assessment process takes only 9 days, and we are supposedly doing this to prevent suffering at the end of life?

Dr Luke Garske

They also note that:

The Queensland bill does not require the doctor to have any expertise in predicting death, or expertise in identifying depression. And it is very loose in its requirements to assess decision making capacity. We should identify and treat depression to relieve the desire to suicide, rather than promoting your suicide if this is caused by mental illness.

The bill also assumes that an accurate diagnosis will always be made of an incurable disease, and doctors will never miss the diagnosis of a condition that could have been treated. Yet it allows doctors in training, without any knowledge of the condition you have, to make a diagnosis that they have not been trained to make, and certify you for [assisted suicide or euthanasia]. This compares to other states, which have the advantage of specialists with experience in the disease you have. People with curable diseases have been wrongly assisted to suicide in other jurisdictions, because of a wrong diagnosis. The inexperience of the Queensland doctors would cause more wrongful assisted suicides based on incorrect diagnoses of treatable diseases.

The two experienced physicians warn of the impossibility of always identifying coercion and elder abuse and the inevitability that some Queenslanders will die wrongful deaths after being coerced by others to "request" assistance to suicide or euthanasia.

Everald Compton is a longstanding campaigner for [euthanasia], who has stated that he “has faith” that this law won’t be abused. This is a fantasy land where no-one lies, cheats or steals; in the real world, this law will be abused. It is naïve to believe that doctors, family members and others will not sometimes pressure vulnerable patients to have an assisted suicide. Elder abuse is common and the Queensland Bill would create the perfect scenario for this.

The people charged with detecting coercion are time pressured doctors, who unlike judges and lawyers, have no expertise or skills to detect coercion. If a loved one pressured you to have an assisted suicide, or you felt such a burden that you felt obliged to choose it, would you tell your doctor, or would you “go quietly”? Based on our professional experience, we strongly disagree with the “faith” that Everald Compton has, that the Queensland bill has any realistic ability to prevent or detect abuses.

For example, Queensland doctors would be able to initiate the conversation about assisted suicide. In other states the patient must initiate the discussion. It is fanciful to believe that a doctor would not sometimes guide a patient to have assisted suicide because of their own prejudices or opinions. Many patients will trust their doctor and follow their advice, and these conversations will be occurring within private non-recorded medical consultations. The fact that this change has been allowed into the legislation underlines the lack of medical experience in guiding the supposed attempts to protect the vulnerable.

Dr Garske and Porfessor Glare call for the Parliament to reject the Bil, and instead to adequately fund palliative care for all Queenslander.

We know that in overseas jurisdictions where assisted suicide has been going for about 2 decades, there is an ongoing rapid growth of numbers, and a gradual extension of indications to less serious conditions. With all of the unsafe aspects of the Queensland legislation being proposed from the outset, how can we have any confidence in how many Queenslanders will have wrongful and coerced deaths in 10-20 years? The only reliable safeguard is to keep the current law, and reject the bill.

Let’s instead focus on properly resourced palliative care. Why is it good enough for Premier Palaszczuk to provide only a fraction of the funds required to provide all Queenslanders with access to quality palliative care - when billions can be found for the 2032 Olympics? Why doesn’t parliament just properly fund palliative care for all? This is the far more compassionate option, which in clinical reality will relieve suffering for many more people. Properly funded palliative care can terminate the suffering, which is far safer than terminating the sufferer.

More articles from the Australian Care Alliance (Link).

Queensland Australia Euthanasia Bill fails to protect from involuntary death

This article was published by the Australian Care Alliance on September 1, 2021.

To read the full submission by the Australian Care Alliance (Link).

In a legal analysis of Queensland's Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2021 presented to the Australian Care Alliance, Paul Santamaria QC concluded that if enacted it would manifestly fail to protect vulnerable Queenslanders from being led into a death "not by a genuine exercise of personal autonomy, but rather because they feel pressured to agree – or, worse, are actually unaware of the nature of the process being undertaken 'for' them".

In the Bill as designed, the risk scenarios of patients who do not possess sufficient decision-making capacity or who are not acting voluntarily are manifest.

Nothing in this Bill ought encourage diligent parliamentarians to believe that prosecution for unlawful conduct which has caused the death of vulnerable Queenslanders is other than the stuff of dreams.

The protections much vaunted by the proponents of the Bill are only paper thin, wallpaper as it were, to assuage concerns of the parliamentary middle ground and to garner their support which is necessary to secure its passage into law. To the extent that the Bill confers protection on anyone, ironically, the Bill protects those who may honour the law in its breach and not its observance, such is the lack of any effective sanctions for breach.

The critical discretions under the Bill – for example, as to whether the patient has a terminal illness, is suffering intolerably on account of that illness, has requisite decision-making capacity, whether their decision is voluntary, and their consent is informed as to the nature and finality of the consequences of their action – all of these conditions are evaluated by [two] medical practitioners.

The Bill does not require them to know the patient or to have had any prior consultative relationship with the patient. The Bill does not require the doctors to be specialist or experienced in the illness or disease from which the person is suffering.

Given the presence of unacceptable elder abuse within the community, and the recognition that undue influence and coercion may be expected unless regulated, the acid is on the parliament to ensure that its protective function delivers safeguards that are watertight. Not as good as we can get – but watertight.

High-sounding phrases like “voluntary”, “no coercion”, “no undue influence” and the like promise much but deliver little. It is not realistic for two doctors, who may know nothing about the patient, the patient’s personality, family relationships or the possibility of past and present elder abuse by family members of the patient to arrive at a sufficiently informed decision on a sometimes vexing matter that, when before the courts, takes a significant period of time to determine safely.

It requires little imagination to know that there is little prospect that the doctor will become aware of circumstances that indicate a patient’s decision is involuntary.

The vice of the Bill in this regard is that any breach of statutory obligation will not be detected. Because death is “privatised” by the Bill, there is no realistic prospect that the death of a patient by unlawful conduct will ever be detected, let alone the subject of punitive sanction.

So far as the State has any involvement in the process, it is confined to checking that the paperwork has been correctly completed by the participants each of whom is working to the same end– that is, that all the boxes on the forms have been ticked, literally. Notice that the Bill reveals a stick only when a doctor is to file the paperwork. The State has no interest, let alone duty, in inquiring into the circumstances in which the paperwork has been prepared.

The Australian Care Alliance submission on the Bill may be read here.

The Dissenting Reports opposing the Bill by Dr Mark Robinson MP may be read here and that by Mr Stephen Andrew MP read here.

Debate on the Bill may take place in the Queensland Parliament in the sitting week beginning Tuesday 14 September.

Queensland Australia - Dissenting report opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dr. Mark Robinson MP in the Queensland Australia parliament and the member for Oodgeroo wrote a dissenting report to the official parliamentary report on the proposed assisted dying bill.

Link to the Dissenting report by Dr Robinson (Link).

Similar to the minority report on assisted dying written for the Western Australian parliament that was by the Hon Nick Goiran, Dr Robinson's report creates a strong basis for opposing assisted dying.

Nick Goiran wrote a 248 page report titled: License to Care not License to Kill opposing the legalization of euthanasia or assisted suicide which was meticulously researched, documenting world-wide concerns with legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Dr Robinson's dissenting report is 24 pages of strong arguements against euthanasia. Robinson first argues that since the World Medical Association and the Australian Medical Association that physicians should not be involved in interventions that have as their primary intention, the ending of a persons life, therefore acts of euthanasia and assisted suicide are unethical.

Dr Robinson then emphasizes that if proper end-of-life care and palliative care were properly available that there would be no demand for euthanasia. Robinson points out that the administration of poison has become an alternative to the lack of proper end-of-life care.

Dr Robinson then quotes Dr Philip Nitschke, also known as Australia's Dr Death, who now believes that death should be an available option for people who are "Tired of Living," Robinson explains that - Once the euthanasia genie is out of the bottle it doesn’t go back in. He states:

The flow on affect from initial legalisation has proven to be unstoppable and irreversible once introduced. What is initially proposed as a measure to help a very small number of people, said to be in intolerable physical pain, is progressively broadened to apply to thousands of people, including those with no physical medical condition. Initial procedural safeguards are also relaxed. Once you lift the lid on Pandora’s box, there’s no going back.

Many vulnerable people experience subtle pressure to take their own life – some are made to feel almost duty bound to their family or to society to end their life prematurely. When elder abuse is combined with legalised access to the administration of life-ending poisons, it inevitably leaves the most vulnerable at risk of being coerced into ending their lives by assistance to suicide or euthanasia. This results in wrongful deaths, whereby people’s lives are taken from them without their full cognisance or consent. Wrongful deaths have followed these laws everywhere they are introduced.

Queensland Parliament

Dr Robinson challenges the Queensland Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill based on the following eight “Findings”:

• Finding 1: The Bill would make it legal for one person to take the life or help end the life of another person, or to counsel or help another person to take their life. 
• Finding 2: The BiIl would increase the number of suicides in Queensland as opposed to reducing them.
• Finding 3: The Bill fails to ensure that only eligible people will be able to access assisted suicide or euthanasia. 
• Finding 4: The Bill fails to ensure that patients are offered all options to manage their illness prior to the commencement of any life-ending procedure. 
• Finding 5: The Bill fails to adequately define “suffering” to limit it to intolerable physical pain. 
• Finding 6: The Bill provides inadequate protection to those affected by a mental illness. 
• Finding 7: The Bill fails to protect the vulnerable from coercion and undue influence. 
• Finding 8: The Bill fails to safeguard the vulnerable from a prolonged, complicated or painful death as a result of the administration of a poison prescribed under the Bill’s provisions.

I encourage my readers to read Dr Robinson's dissenting report to the Queensland Parliament. There has been much pressure to extend euthanasia to every jurisdiction in Australia and I hope that cooler heads will prevail, preventing the legalization of euthanasia in Queensland.

Link to the Dissenting report by Dr Robinson MP (Link).

Queensland Australia: Is voluntary assisted dying really going to remain voluntary or safe?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dr's John Buchanan, Odette Spruijt & Haydn Walters wrote an excellent article that was published in the Spectator Australia on June 2 concerning the Queensland Australia euthanasia bill, asking the question: Is voluntary assisted dying really going to remain voluntary or safe?

The authors begin their article by stating that:

The Queensland Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2021, and reports that the Queensland Government will include mental suffering as a criterion, are of great concern to future medical practice.

The authors are right. Mental suffering is based on personal not objective grounds. The authors state:

An ethical medical assumption in most Western democracies, and especially Australia, has been that the state does not take or collude in the taking of the lives of its citizens; what politicians are doing in Australia at the moment is therefore quite profound and socially dangerous.

Legislation of this sort assumes it can put subtle and complex medical and psychological matters into a black and white legal framework. This is very difficult if not impossible without opening the door to harm for present and future patients.
We have seen this very harm after Canada legalized euthanasia in 2016.

The authors continue by uncovering further problems with the Queensland euthanasia bill. They state:

There is no obligation in this Bill for the doctor involved to confirm the pathology from which a person suffers, consult with their current treating doctor, refer for specialist palliative care consultation, or refer to a psychiatrist experienced in the field. And this is a situation where fear of the unknown and outright depression is rife, and the main drivers of suicidal thought.

An assumption is made that a requesting patient is fully informed about all of these matters, is having fully adequate care, does not suffer from depression, and is not under coercion by anyone, especially relatives.

The authors continue by focusing on the long-term problems with legalizing euthanasia.

The outworking of this sort of legislation will create a major medical ethical problem in coming decades. A somewhat hidden concern also must be future bureaucratic proposals about the expense of care for ageing and dementing people. Government itself is crossing a huge ethical boundary in legitimising the killing of its citizens; where may that end?

Will doctor-assisted suicide, voluntary or involuntary, be considered as part of the “management of ageing”. Once the ethical line is crossed, there is no logical end-point to terminating of life as part of future ‘medical management’ or indeed governmental social policy.

As I stated in an article last week, Queensland's euthanasia bill is deliberately deceptive while Liz Storer with Sky News called Queensland's euthanasia bill disturbing.

Queensland Australia assisted suicide bill is disturbing

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Liz Storer

Liz Storer a contributor with Australia's Sky News did an excellent report on Queensland's assisted suicide bill (Link to the report).

Storer calls assisted suicide a seismic shift in societal values. She also correctly states that the Queensland assisted suicide bill is the most liberal in Australia. My recent article agrees with Storer as well as I identified how the bill is deliberatively deceptive (Link).

Storer's main points about the assisted suicide bill were:

“Firstly, the bill allows access to assisted suicide much earlier than any other jurisdiction currently in Australia, it grants people given 12 months or less to live access to a state-facilitated death,” Ms Storer said.

“Secondly, and I would say most disturbingly, this bill makes ‘mental suffering’ grounds for eligibility.

 “A third point of difference is that this bill allows for terminally ill persons who are mentally ill or disabled to access a state-facilitated suicide if deemed to have decision-making capacity.

“Lastly, like WA’s laws, Queensland’s bill allows doctors and nurses to raise the option of suicide with a patient.”

Storer concludes by stating: “Make no mistake, our sanctioning this represents a seismic shift in our societal values,”

• Queensland Australia assisted suicide bill is deliberately deceptive (Link).

Queensland Australia euthanasia bill is deliberately deceptive

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Queensland Parliament

The Queensland euthanasia bill, known as the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill, is overly wordy (113 pages) and deliberately misleading. The Tasmanian euthanasia bill (122 pages) had similar concerns. It appears that Australian governments think that the abuses and problems with euthanasia bills can be hidden by a verbose bill.

The deception begins in the first sections of the bill. For instance, Section 7 (1) states that a health care worker is not to initiate discussion about voluntary assisted dying. Section 7 (2) allows a health care worker to initiate discussion about voluntary assisted dying when talking about other treatment options. Section 7 (1) is intentionally deceptive. Health care workers can initiate discussion about euthanasia, so long as it is within a discussion about treatment options in general.

The Queensland bill uses the term health care worker, rather than physician or nurse. In other words, the Queensland bill allows a wide group of health care providers to be involved with the act.

The Queensland bill limits the act to terminally ill people but the definition is very wide. The bill states:

A person is eligible for access to voluntary assisted dying if—

• (a) the person has been diagnosed with a disease, illness or medical condition that— 
• (i) is advanced, progressive and will cause death; and  
• (ii) is expected to cause death within 12 months; and 
• (iii) is causing suffering that the person considers to be intolerable; and

• (b) the person has decision-making capacity in relation to voluntary assisted dying; and 
• (c) the person is acting voluntarily and without coercion; and  
• (d) the person is at least 18 years of age; and...
  

The 12 month terminal illness requirement is wide-open. A person can refuse effective medical treatments and still qualify for euthanasia. There are many medical conditions that will lead to death if a person refuses medical treatment.

The requirements for euthanasia are subjective. The bill states that the person considers the suffering to be intolerable. If someone has suicidal ideation and wants to die, they will state that they consider their suffering to be intolerable.

The cause of death is to be labelled as the medical condition that resulted in the approval for death by lethal drugs rather than admitting that death occurred by assisted suicide or euthanasia.

It is interesting that under the heading - Residency exemptions a person who is not a resident of Queensland could be approved for euthanasia based on "compassionate grounds." Does this mean that Queensland is willing to become a suicide tourist destination?

The bill tramples on conscience rights. The bill requires medical practitioners who refuse to participate in euthanasia to refer a patient to a medical practitioner or service that is willing to provide euthanasia.

The bill requires medical practitioners who are willing to participate in euthanasia to be trained. This does enable medical practitioners who don't want to participate in the act to decide not to be trained.

Similar to other euthanasia laws, the bill is designed to give, in this case medical practitioners, the right in law to kill their patients. After the request to be killed is made, the decision to approve and then to kill is made by the medical practitioner.

Similar to the original Canadian law this bill allows euthanasia for psychological or mental illness, as long as the person is terminally ill. Since the Queensland bill focuses on the undefined concept of suffering, is this not a set-up to permit euthanasia for mental illness, a few years down the slippery slope?

Terminally Ill Dying Out of Hopelessness and Abandonment.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dr Chris Perry

Daniel Tang, reported for the Epoch Times that Dr Chris Perry, the President of the Queensland Australia Medical Association warned Queensland legislators who are debating euthanasia that terminally ill patients choose to “take poison” and die out of hopelessness or abandonment.

Tang reporting on a press conference stated:

Dr. Chris Perry said the euthanasia experience in Victoria, Canada, and Oregon in the United States—one of the earliest jurisdictions to legalise the practice—saw many candidates choose euthanasia because they felt trapped or incapacitated.

Perry stated that killing people who feel hopeless and neglected is not right:

“So, it’s not the right way to treat human beings; we should be treating human beings as we’d like to be treated with dignity and respect,”

“You don’t want people being feeling hopeless, and being neglected, not being well cared for, and ending up taking a drink which will result in them dying in 20 to 30 minutes,”

The Queensland government will likely vote on a bill to legalize euthanasia this week.

The Western Australian published an Editorial on May 22 urging the Queensland government to amend its euthanasia bill because it requires religiously affiliated medical institutions to be complicit with killing.

 

Queensland Australia euthanasia bill will force religiously affiliated medical institutions to be complicit with killing.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An Editorial published in the Weekend Australian on May 22 focuses on a dilemma created by the Queensland Australia euthanasia bill. To ensure access, the euthanasia bill forces religiously affiliated medical institutions to be complicit with killing. The Editorial states:

Christian churches in Queensland, which operate major hospitals in the state, are facing a serious dilemma. As Walker reports in the news pages, Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge and Uniting Church in Queensland moderator Andrew Gunton say the right of institutional conscientious objection the churches had been promised is not explicit in the draft bill.

The Editorial urges the Queensland legislature to respect the freedom of religion:

The issue should be clarified in the Queensland legislation before it is voted on. The right of church-run institutions not to co-operate with VAD must be respected. Anything less would attack freedom of Christian belief and practice, which forged hospital and nursing care in the Middle Ages and is fundamental to our nation’s traditions. Churches should stand their ground.

An article published by the Medical  NewsGP also comments on the dilemma by stating:

Another novel feature is the Queensland bill limits the ability of institutions to object to voluntary assisted dying. This is an Australian-first, as Victorian, Western Australian and Tasmanian laws only deal with permitting individual health professionals to conscientiously object.

If medical institutions are denied the right to object to euthanasia then medical professionals will be the next group forced to participate in euthanasia. 

The euthanasia lobby exists to promote access to euthanasia. Religiously affiliated healthcare institutions need to fight to maintain their rights and duties within a radically secularized culture.

Australian man loses appeal in his conviction for assisting the suicide of his wife for $1.4 million.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Jennifer Morant

In a unanimous decision, the Queensland Australia Court of Appeal upheld the conviction of Graham Morant who assisted the suicide of his wife, Jennifer Morant (56) for her $1.4 million in life insurance. 

Morant was convicted in October, 2018 and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Commentary by Richard Egan on the Court of Appeal decision (Link).

In an article published by the Brisbane Times by Lidia Lynch, Lynch explains why Morant's conviction appeal failed. Lynch reports:

Morant was the sole beneficiary of his wife's three life insurance policies, totalling $1.4 million.

Ms Morant lived with chronic back pain and found even the most simple everyday tasks difficult.

But Morant persuaded her over the months before her death by telling her the funds would go towards building a religious commune.

Morant claimed to police his wife wanted to die, but two witnesses close to her testified she did not want to kill herself and was scared by his pressure on her to do so.

Morant's lawyers appealed his conviction on four grounds and argued for a retrial based on emails between Ms Morant and Dr Nitschke came to light after the initial conviction. Lynch explains why the Court of Appeal didn't view these emails as effecting the conviction:

In the emails sent months before her death, Ms Morant told Dr Nitschke about her suffering and sought his help.

She told him of her anguish and pain and asked for his help about "how to end my life in a peaceful manner".

In his reasons, Court of Appeal President Walter Sofronoff acknowledged the emails were not available to Morant's lawyers at trial.

"However, it is impossible to see how they could have helped the appellant to secure an acquittal," he wrote.

"It would, instead, have reinforced Ms Morant’s vulnerability to the appellant’s inducements."

At his sentencing in November 2018, ABC News Australia reported Justice Peter Davis stating:

"You took advantage of her vulnerability as a sick and depressed woman. 

You counselled your wife to kill herself because you wanted to get your hands on the $1.4 million. 

Your general financial position was such that $1.4 million was a very significant sum, as it would be to most people. 

You have not shown any remorse for the offences you have committed. 

You did not plead guilty and you did not cooperate with the administration of justice."

Candice Lewis

The coercion used by Graham Morant that led to the assisted suicide death of his wife Jennifer is not indicative of most assisted suicide deaths, but it is also not uncommon.

In Canada, Candice Lewis, among others, was pressured by her doctors to ask for an assisted death. We will never know how many assisted deaths occurred after the person was pressured by doctors, nurses, family members or friends because the victim is dead and the victimizer thinks that it was the right thing to do.

Queensland Australia Court of Appeal upheld Decision in Morant Aiding Suicide Case

A Red Flag for Assisted Suicide Law

By Richard Egan

Jennifer Morant

In a unanimous decision by three judges of the Queensland Court of Appeal handed down in Brisbane on 19 June 2020 in the case of R v Morant [2020] QCA 135, Graham Morant’s appeal against his conviction for aiding the suicide of his wife was rejected on all four grounds of appeal and the sentence of 10 years imprisonment was upheld as fair.

Morant was convicted on two counts under s311 of the Queensland Criminal Code. The first was that he had counselled Ms Morant to kill herself and thereby induced her to do so. The second was that he had aided her in killing herself.

One of the grounds of appeal was the belated discovery of two emails Ms Morant had exchanged with Dr Philip Nitschke. The emails presumably showed that she had suicidal ideation and was actively considering means of suicide.

However, these things were already apparent from evidence presented at Mr Morant’s trial. As Sofronoff P concluded (at 38):

The evidence could not have helped the appellant. It would, instead, have reinforced Ms Morant’s vulnerability to the appellant’s inducements.

Sofronoff P explains (at 47):

It was implicit in the jury’s verdicts that the appellant had counselled Ms Morant to kill herself with the intention that she should commit suicide. It also follows that the jury found that the counselling was effective to induce her to commit suicide so that, but for the appellant’s counselling, she would not have gassed herself on 30 November 2014.

Morant stood to benefit from three life insurance policies to the total of $1.4 million.

His efforts to induce his wife to commit suicide included recounting to her a story about “a customer of his [who] had taken out policies of insurance in favour of his wife and had then killed himself.” Mr Morant told his wife that that was “an amazing and wonderful thing” to have done. He encouraged her to do the same for him.

Sofronoff P concluded (at 64-65):

The present case is a paradigm case that exhibits the wickedness of the offence of counselling and thereby inducing a victim to kill herself. The offence was committed against a woman who was vulnerable to the appellant’s inducements. His actions were premeditated, calculated and were done for financial gain… The offence was a serious one that involved a killing of a human being.

One of the judges, Boddice J summarised (at 248-249) the case against Graham Morant:

[T]he deceased was a vulnerable person with difficulties with her physical health, who was already suffering depression; and the fact that the appellant, by his conduct, took advantage of those vulnerabilities in order to persuade her to kill herself and then assisted her to do so. 

In addition to those matters, the more serious aspect of the offences, counselling suicide, occurred over a period of months. Its seriousness was aggravated by the fact that the appellant had also aided the deceased to kill herself, being the end result of that extended period of counselling.

This case should be a big red flag to those intent on legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia as the current Queensland Government intends to do if re-elected on 31 October 2020. It has charged the Queensland Law Reform Commission with preparing draft legislation and is instructed in doing so to “have regard to” the draft legislation prepared by Ben White and Lindy Willmott.
 
That draft legislation proposes that the two doctors assessing requests for euthanasia or assisted suicide must, among other things, undergo “approved assessment training” and assess the request as “made voluntarily and without coercion”.
 
The approved training prepared by Ben White for doctors licensed to kill by lethal injection or to prescribe poison to people in Victoria under its euthanasia and assisted suicide law contains a total of just over 5 minute (including a 2 minute 20 second video and slides which take a further 2 minutes 50 seconds to read) assessing voluntariness, including assessing the absence of coercion. 

As a co-author of “an article entitled “Biggest decision of them all – death and assisted dying: capacity assessments and undue influence screening”, published in the Internal Medicine Journal in January 2019, White dissented from the recommendations of his co-authors proposed “Guideline for clinicians assessing capacity and screening for undue Influence for voluntary assisted dying”.
 
Issues identified in this insightful report but completely ignored in the training prepared by White for Victorian doctors include:

• undiagnosed depression;
• cognitive impairment associated with Motor Neuron Disease and its effect on decision making capacity;
• the use of supported decision making “allowing one person to communicate or assist with communicating another’s decision raises concerns about potential for undue influence, especially given the gravity of the assisted suicide or euthanasia decision”.

If Queensland passes a law permitting euthanasia and assisted suicide it will be removing from vulnerable Queenslanders like Ms Morant, the protection of Section 311 with its absolute prohibition on counselling, inducing and aiding suicide.

Instead manipulative, greedy, coercive, murderous perpetrators like Graham Morant, will simply need to suggest to a vulnerable spouse or parent or “friend” that accessing legal doctor provided euthanasia or taking doctor prescribed lethal poison is “all for the best dear”.

Indeed, no jurisdiction that has legalised assisted suicide has even made any serious effort to establish a genuinely safe framework in this regard. No such framework is possible. Any law permitting assisted suicide or euthanasia will result in wrongful deaths from coercion.

Richard Egan is a researcher who has studied euthanasia and assisted suicide laws for 36 years and is the author of Seventeen Fatally Flawed Experiments in Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia and Twelve Categories of Wrongful Death from Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia