A MORE LOVING AND HUMANE APPROACH

And in more detail...

For many people and for all sorts of reasons, the subject of death is a troubling one to broach. But, like it or not, this is something we’re all going to have to face on a personal level eventually. And long before your own death, you’ll more than likely experience the death of someone close. For many, this is an event that, if not life-changing, can be attitude-changing.

As we’re all constantly reminded, Australia’s population is an aging one. Possibly due to this aging, coupled with the fact that our lifespans are lengthening, an increasing number of deaths are ones that linger, slowly stripping the humanity and dignity from the person who’s dying, all while friends and family look on with an overwhelming sense of helplessness and frustration. If you’re one of these onlookers and getting older yourself, you might be thinking this is your own future unfolding, bringing on that attitude-changing moment specifically about assisted dying.

You currently have little control over your own death

What all Australians should be entitled to is control over their own death. Currently, that’s not possible.

Every Australian state and territory has now passed legislation for “voluntary assisted dying,” or VAD, as assisted, lawful euthanasia is called. These laws, while a step in the right direction, are, in effect, compromises passed only after protracted religious, ethical, and legal battles fought over many years in state legislatures.

Because here’s the thing: all versions of these laws insist that a major hurdle be cleared before an individual can qualify for an assisted death, and that’s the presence of a terminal medical illness likely to cause death within six months or 12 months in the case of neurodegenerative conditions. You might think that this requirement is reasonable. Or perhaps not if you witness a loved one begging to be released from the debilitating pain and suffering that they’ve been enduring for years and with no end in sight. Or seen the onset of diseases such as Lewy Body Dementia and the creeping terror that your mother, father, or sibling begs to be spared from as they slowly and sometimes violently cease to be the person you knew. It’s sobering.

The primary moral objections to the VAD laws we currently have were largely raised by powerful religious lobbies or state members with firm religious views

The word "humane" doesn't seem to apply to us humans

While the question of VAD in Australia is a state-and-territory-based concern, the federal government should have a position on it. It doesn’t. The Good Party does. We believe that pain and suffering should also be taken into account when assessing the eligibility of a voluntarily assisted death, along with quality of life and dignity or, rather, the loss of both.

The primary moral objections to the VAD laws we currently have were largely raised by powerful religious lobbies or state members with firm religious views. But in an overwhelmingly secular society, views like those carry far too much weight. In Australia, we have freedom of religion. We also have the freedom to have no religion at all, don’t we? So, it’s both unreasonable and improper for the moral strictures of a religious minority to be imposed on the majority.

Establishing a VAD Commission

Another seemingly insurmountable objection raised by voices opposed to relaxing the VAD laws is the lowest common denominator one—that we risk having older Australians guilted into being euthanised by grifting adult children who can’t wait to get their hands on the family assets. Switzerland, which has had widely accessible VAD laws for more than half a century, passed a criminal code back in 1937 outlawing "incitement or assistance to suicide from selfish motives.” With a law such as this, those self-seeking “lowest common denominators” are rightly dispatched to correctional facilities.

...we risk having older Australians guilted into being euthanised by grifting adult children who can’t wait to get their hands on the family assets

Even if Australia has its own “incitement laws” enacted, at the Good Party we recognise that nervousness about abuse would still abound if the conditions attached to VAD were to be broadened. A ready solution could be the establishment of a VAD Commission, headed by a senior retired judge, with review panels staffed by palliative care physicians, senior nurses, and psychologists. These panels would oversee patient requests to hasten their end and give the green light to proceed or not.

Australia wouldn't be "going it alone"

Aside from Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Canada offer far more humane VAD laws than we currently do in Australia. In 1997, the Constitutional Court of Colombia ruled in a 6—3 decision that "no person can be held criminally responsible for taking the life of a terminally ill patient who has given clear authorization to do so.” To our mind, this is enlightened thinking. And if Australia were to adopt the Good Party’s respectful and loving VAD proposal, our society clearly wouldn’t be going it alone.

A conscience decision for the Good Party

At the Good Party, we recognise that the taking of human life, no matter what the reasons or justifications, is unthinkable and untenable and while broadening the regimen that governs Voluntary Assisted Dying is a Good Party policy, support for this is up to each individual's conscience.