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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (22 November) . . Page.. 2258 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

. Our present law protects the lives of all, especially the lives of the most vulnerable, as it should. This protection would be lost if new law allowed the killing of any innocent persons. Legalised euthanasia would uniquely put at risk a vulnerable group, and would constitute a possible precedent for the identification of other groups at another time.

That sounds a warning, and I think it is something we should listen to. He goes on:

. The example of Holland is consistent with what may be expected of perverse human nature, given the appropriate circumstances. There could be no assurance that such things could not happen here, or that we would manage new laws any better.

. It cannot be maintained that a proper law, which is said to be missing in Holland, would guarantee that euthanasia could be controlled. There is a proper law in Holland, and it is comprehensively disregarded. Why could not the same happen here?

. Experience in several countries has shown that it is impossible to write effective safeguards into proposed euthanasia law, so that its application could not be extended to unwanted groups of persons.

. The slippery-slope argument is usually misinterpreted as meaning people of good intention may be gradually hardened, so as to accept more grievous actions. Rather, its potential is inherent in the attitudes of those who propose killing when there is no need to do so and who, in time, may presumably want it also in other circumstances. "They start with those who are a nuisance to themselves and end with those who are a nuisance to others".

Those are significant lessons that come from the Dutch experience. Are we going to cast it aside and exercise our own judgment and say that we are better informed and smarter than those people? I do not think so.

From the three major inquiries I talked about that have been undertaken in the last couple of years, I note that, whilst some inquiry members saw assisted suicide as not unethical or incompatible with medical practice and believed that providing a less prolonged death in some cases respected patient autonomy and showed care and commitment by health professionals, the same members felt that legalising assisted suicide would be unwise and dangerous public policy. I agree with them. None of the three inquiries considered it possible to draft laws that were safe against negligence, for example, misdiagnosis, or unscrupulous actions which kill the vulnerable or the weak. In fact, the House of Lords committee concluded:

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