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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (26 February) . . Page.. 443 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The termination of the life of a dying person, whether or not it is out of pity, whether it is carried out by a doctor or some other health professional, is a violation of the fundamental tenets of both my personal faith and sound public policy. Whether or not we profess to have particular religious convictions, whether or not we profess to be Christians, it remains true that Judaeo-Christian values and tenets underpin the basis of our society, including our obligations and rights as citizens to observe the law.

This issue has featured in debate here on at least three occasions. The views of members do not seem to change; only the membership of the Assembly changes. Mr Moore believes that active voluntary euthanasia is inevitable. In that respect, Mr Speaker, I believe that he is wrong. The concept of mercy killing is itself some centuries old and no doubt has been practised, with or without the protection of the law, for a very long period of time; yet only in the Northern Territory, alone on the world stage at this time, and only in very recent days, has legislation been enacted that would actually validate the practice of euthanasia in that particular place. We have to ask the question: Is this the first trickle from a floodgate, or is this a flash in the pan? I believe, Mr Speaker, that it is the latter, because I believe that those who support this legislation have not taken into account the advances in medical technology, which some others have referred to in this debate, which I think remove much of the reason - perhaps the emotional reason - for euthanasia.

In the debate about euthanasia a great deal is made of the highly emotive image of persons suffering unbearably in the final stages of life; yet this is a false image for the vast majority of terminal illnesses. The future promises fewer and fewer needing to suffer for want of appropriate relief. Once the diminished quality of life argument is outstripped by science, what is left of the emotional stock-in-trade of euthanasia?

Economic considerations may also extend to this kind of debate for those who seek, or have offered to them, the option of euthanasia. I think that there is a very real danger in this debate that the availability of euthanasia within our medical system could lead to a downgrading in the provision of palliative care services. I share the support of other members in this place for the quality of our own palliative care services in this city; but I have to say that a regime that provides for some members to be taken out of that arrangement into the option of terminating their lives must present a threat to the very high standards of palliative care which I think we have already achieved in this Territory.

I believe that the issue of patient suffering, the experience of intractable pain, is an issue in this debate that is highly emotive but has been highly exaggerated. One doctor put it to me that a medical practitioner who could not substantially relieve the pain of a terminal patient was not much of a doctor. It is wrong, I think, to link the issue of intractable pain to the availability of active euthanasia, even if there were such cases occurring on a wide scale. There is no way of limiting the principles inherent in this Bill simply to those who are suffering from intractable pain, rare as those individuals might be. The principles will be applied to those who seek it because of their state of mind, not just because of their state of body. I do not think, Mr Speaker, that, as we go about this debate, we can foresee where the limits of those principles will be. I will return to that argument in a moment.

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