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In those countries where this choice has been made available, many view it as akin to an insurance policy: You probably will not need it, but if you do the need can be overwhelming. Having that choice can take away the anxiety and fear of dying in an extremely painful or drawn out way. Relatives of those who have had this choice and did not eventually avail themselves of it have said that the final days of their loved ones were made much easier because they were anxiety free.

I believe that those who have lobbied against voluntary euthanasia are seriously mistaken in their belief that improvements in palliative care will be sufficient to relieve the types of suffering that motivate many to seek medical aid in dying. Anybody who listened to the radio between 9 and 9.30 this morning would have heard a number of people phone in and explain their own distress because they did not have adequate pain control. It is a furphy that pain control is at a stage where nobody has to suffer pain. It is simply still not true, although huge improvements have been made in that area over the last few years. Hopefully, there will be such improvements made that nobody will ever feel that they have to make this choice.

Dr Brian Stoffell, Director of the Medical Ethics Unit at Flinders Medical Centre, in a letter to the Advertiser on 13 May 1992, expressed the consequences of relying exclusively on palliative care as follows:

Palliative care is an approach to treatment of the dying. As a treatment, it is something that may be accepted or rejected.

Some who might not accept it would prefer a quick end through voluntary euthanasia. The Select Committee (of SA) has now made palliative care obligatory and has thus unwittingly endorsed a form of forced treatment against the individual's wishes. It has declared: “You will not be helped to die, you will be forced to live on, choosing only to do so painfully or medicated to relieve pain”.

The freedom to say no to either option is refused. The liberal spirit of empowerment has foundered in contradiction by the denial of active voluntary euthanasia.

I do not believe that we as politicians have the right to deny this choice to those who are, in their final stages of life, suffering a terminal illness.

Having said that, I believe that we have an obligation to ensure that our palliative care is of the highest calibre. That was the first recommendation of the Select Committee on Euthanasia of this parliament. No person who chooses palliative care when suffering a terminal illness should ever have that suffering exacerbated by lack of knowledge in pain management and poor palliative care. From what I have seen, read and heard,

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