Assisted-dying laws now nationwide but gag under fire
Lloyd Jones |
One territory’s gag clause stopping doctors from raising assisted dying with patients risks depriving terminally ill people of choice, an end-of-life law expert says.
The Rights of the Terminally Ill bill passed on a conscience vote in the Northern Territory parliament on Thursday, with the gag intact.
The bill’s passing was an historic moment, meaning all terminally ill Australians would have legal access to voluntary assisted dying, said Professor Ben White of the Queensland University of Technology.
“If you think back to nine years ago this practice was unlawful across the country,” the end-of-life law expert told AAP on Friday.
The NT became the first Australian jurisdiction to make voluntary euthanasia legal in 1995, but the laws were overturned in 1997 by the Howard government.
All six states, the NT and the ACT have now passed laws allowing it.
Under the NT bill only people predicted by doctors to have 12 months or less to live would have access to assisted dying.
The only other Australian jurisdictions with gag clauses are South Australia and Victoria, but the latter has passed a law to remove the gag from April 2027.
The only other country with a gag clause was New Zealand where a review had recommended the gag be removed, Prof White said.
Under the NT gag care was needed to ensure people didn”t miss out on the choice of voluntary dying because they didn’t know it existed, didn’t feel they were eligible or didn’t feel able to raise it with their doctor, he said.
Research into the impact of a gag clause showed patients and their families had deep reservations about doctors not being able to raise assisted dying.
“Doctors often described feeling deceitful becuase they weren’t legally able to provide information or were very frustrated about not being able to inform people about their choices,” Prof White said.
A survey of 1000 adults in Queensland after assisted-dying laws were passed there found two-thirds would want their doctor to raise it if they were potentially eligible.
In the NT parliament on Thursday Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby defended the gag, saying it was to safeguard terminally ill and often vulnerable people from being coerced into ending their lives.
Longtime assisted-dying campaigner Philip Nitschke said the passing of the law made the NT “a pioneer and a laggard”.
Restrictions on doctors such as the gag clause and the 12-month prognosis time had long since been abandoned in other nations, the Exit International director said in a statement.
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AAP