Page 2879 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 September 1994
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There was no demand whatsoever for this Bill; but Mr Moore had to come up with a compromise where he retained some face. So he has accepted this; but he has made it clear, as recently as this morning on public radio, that this is only the toe in the door. He still intends to pursue the active euthanasia Bill that he put forward initially. Are we other 16 so gullible that we are going to be driven along by Mr Moore in this fashion? For my part, the answer is, "No, I am not". I insist that there was no demand at all for this Bill. It is a very poor compromise, and it must be a poor compromise even for Mr Moore. We should not be debating the Bill at all because there was no demand from anybody for a Bill of this kind. Yet we are debating it here today. So, on the first point, of whether we should have this legislation before us at all, the answer, to my mind, is no. We should not even be looking at such legislation, for any reason, because there has been no call for it. So, whose interests are we serving? Are we serving the interests of the three or four people who constitute the ACT Euthanasia Society? I do not think they constitute a big enough majority to demand this kind of legislation.
The second question is: What is there about this legislation that is before us that commends itself, given that there is no demand for it or no call for it? The justification is that we have to legalise what is happening already. My response to that is, "If what is happening already is illegal, why do we have to legalise it?". Do we have to make every act that somebody wants to commit legal, particularly when it gets down to terminating somebody's life? There are one or two provisions in this Bill and, if it had confined itself to them, I would have supported it. I would support the proposition that, if an adult person, in sound mind, fully understanding their situation, is prepared to write a written will that they want something done, it should be honoured.
But this goes further than that. It allows an oral direction. If a person is in hospital and suffering, and has not made a written will, but at a particular point decides that he or she wants to give an oral direction, how does the health professional satisfy himself or herself that all of these preconditions are met? How do you define "being of sound mind"? If you are suffering severe pain, are you of sound mind? Is the person competent to make an oral direction under those circumstances? So, I would say that, if you want to stop at a written will made by an adult person of sound mind, fully understanding their condition and the ramifications of it, that is fine. I also support this notion expressed in clause 22:
Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law ... a patient under the care of a health professional has a right to receive maximum relief from pain and suffering.
You should not have to embed that into the law, however; it should be a natural human right. Why do we need to embed that into the law? I accept that that is a valid proposition; but those are the only two valid propositions in this document that I accept. I do not accept that we should be allowing oral directions to be made by a person who is in pain in a hospital. Are they of sound mind?
The other thing that I object to most passionately is the notion that health professionals are somehow superior to other human beings and can make judgments about these things. I do not accept that for a minute, because it places a very strong legal onus on the medical professionals. For example, clause 16 states:
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