As the Assisted suicide bill brings legalised euthanasia ever closer for Britain, a nightmarish vision of the slippery slope to state-sanctioned murder is emerging in Australia. The state of Victoria is further down the slide to Hell than we are, and offers a dire warning for our future.
One of the few safeguards in the Australian State of Victoria’s assisted suicide law is set to be removed, allowing doctors to proactively suggest lethal drugs to terminally ill patients.
Under the Australian state’s assisted suicide scheme, known as voluntary assisted dying (VAD), the patient must initiate the process in order to reduce the risk of coercion or pressure. Activists have labelled the protections a ‘gag order’.
VAD has been held up as an example for Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which would allow patients in England and Wales deemed to be terminally ill, and with less than six months to live to receive help to kill themselves.
The changes come on the back of a report from Victoria’s Department of Health, which includes fictitionalised accounts expressing appretiation for the scheme and has made recommendations to loosen the law in the name of “improving access”. One “barrier” mentioned was the requirement of in-person consultations with doctors.
Mary-Anne Thomas, the Health Minister, claimed that allowing health practitioners to raise VAD with patients is a priority in order to keep “in step with other states”. Victoria’s VAD scheme, which was the first in the country, was once called “ground breaking”, but is now deemed “conservative”.
Doctor Nick Carr called the current protections “perverse”, admitting to times he had cared for terminally ill people and longed to ask them if they knew assisted suicide was an option.
President of Dying With Dignity Victoria Jane Morris celebrated, saying it is “the most incredible feeling” that one more VAD protection would be removed. Go Gentle Chief Executive Linda Swan, said she was “delighted” at the prospect.
Celebrated Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson commented on X: “So the ‘gag’ clause in Victoria that prohibited Dr’s raising ‘voluntary assisted suicide’ has been scrapped.
“Apparently what was a safeguard now impedes access to end of life choices.”