Page 4382 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 19 November 1991
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person's death is no less now than before, and may be even greater. Doctors are better at postponing death than returning patients to health, so that many more people with irreversible and disabling conditions are kept alive than formerly. Doctors have been more successful curing the greatest killer diseases of old than coping with the horrendous accidents that have become so much more prevalent.
When dealing with the issue of euthanasia, I find it relatively simple to deal with the black-and-white case of the person with terminal cancer, for example, who is suffering a great deal of pain, with the chance of a horrific death and great suffering, and perhaps only a month to live. In that case I have no difficulty about legislating to allow that person to make the decision to bring about their own death, particularly if they are well enough to take a drug that would prove fatal.
I do not think that is the difficult part of the debate, and when we deal with it I think we will find that our community will respond as in Victoria, where there is 75 per cent support for that notion. I do not think we will have a great deal of difficulty with that part of the debate, although there will be some who will argue against it. I will refer later to the Catholic Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn.
It is important for us to begin to wrestle with the grey areas in the debate, and I think that is where we are going to have difficulty in legislating. I suppose the notion of euthanasia affects us all because we are all going to die. We can imagine ourselves in a situation where, rather than suffering a great deal of pain, with nothing to extend our lives for because we are bedridden, this is a decision we would want to make.
I am aware that the Labor Party in the ACT has adopted euthanasia as part of its policy, but I have no intention of dealing with that policy. I am content that they will have the opportunity to do so in a few minutes.
Active voluntary euthanasia is the rapid and painless inducement of death at the patient's discretion. Many observers distinguish between active and passive euthanasia, and certainly there is already legislation in Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory, and I understand that there are proposals for legislation elsewhere, dealing with passive euthanasia. Passive euthanasia is the ability for a doctor to remove life support systems without which the person will die.
I think most of us are able to distinguish quite clearly between passive and active euthanasia. Many people who would accept, even reluctantly, passive euthanasia certainly would not accept active euthanasia. I believe that there is a place for active euthanasia. Euthanasia is
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