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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (22 November) . . Page.. 2298 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

which turn out to be insufficient to do the job, and they live with the distressing consequences of having made that decision to die but death not having occurred as they had expected. These people deserve to be allowed dignity and given respect for the decisions they are making in the final period of their life, not turned into outcasts and criminals for wanting to take control of the final period of their life.

Mr Speaker, there are a lot of myths surrounding this legislation. I know that a number of other speakers have addressed some of those myths, but I want to run through some of them again. One of the big myths is that this legislation will lead to rampant pressure from society, from family and from health administrators for patients to exercise the option of voluntary euthanasia in order not to be a burden on others. My experience of the medical profession and of family members attending people who are dying is that invariably they are among the last people who wish to see their loved ones die. It is usually the person who is dying who is much more sober about the reality of death than their family and their friends are. I do not believe that this legislation will abolish the humanity that families and medical practitioners have about human beings and human life. I do not believe that there is any reason to think that the situation in relation to the will of patients to live or the will of their families to have them live will change.

Another myth which has been promoted is that this legislation will see the end of funding for palliative care. For exactly the reasons that I have just indicated, I do not believe that there would be any momentum in favour of reducing funding for palliative care or further research into palliative care. People want to see their loved ones live on for as long as they can. They want to see them live on in comfort where they can. They are not going to want to see an end to palliative care simply because this other option exists for a minority of cases.

Another myth that surrounds this matter is that all pain can be managed and that no-one needs to be in suffering or distress in the final period of their life. That is simply not true, Mr Speaker. I have not yet spoken to somebody involved in that field who says that all pain can be managed. Certainly, much can be managed, but people die in different ways. Some people are assisted by legislation which allows the turning off of life-support machines; others are not. Some are assisted by pain-killing injections, which incidentally cause death; others are not. This legislation assists another group of people. It is wrong for us to say that nobody will suffer in the final period of their life under current medical treatment.

Another thing which has been said to me is that dying is a period of spiritual reconciliation, that it is a moment when people come to terms with their life, their family and their friends, and that this final, spiritual event should not be interfered with by giving people the opportunity to bring their life to an end. Mr Speaker, there is no doubt that a lot of people have an experience of dying which involves some of those things, but I know of people who have gone through that process of reconciling themselves to their families and friends, of reviewing their life, of making their peace with their God, but who have not died just because they went through that process. They may have lingered on for another month or two or three. Why should they linger on in pain for another month or two or three just to satisfy a romantic image we have of the process of dying?

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