Assisted suicide is a slippery slope, and a new sad case from Australia illustrates this all too well. An Australian man with Motor Neurone Disease has decided to end his life by euthanasia despite not wanting to die, due to being unable to access sufficient care and support from the state.
Tony Lewis, 71, from Queensland, was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease last year, but is unable to access Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) because he is over the age limit.
Tony has to rely instead on the My Aged Care scheme, which can provide a maximum of $78,100 per year in funding for care. HelloCare, a media platform dedicated to ageing and care, describes the My Aged Care scheme as having “funding levels and response times” which “are widely acknowledged as inadequate for fast progressing neurological conditions”.
Having virtually lost the ability to speak, eat, and move, Tony requires 24/7 care, but the funding he receives from My Aged Care is not sufficient, paying for only four showers and an hour of cleaning per week, with his wife, Gill, carrying out the remainder of the caregiver duties.
HelloCare, an Australian care sector news organisation, reported that Tony “has been clear that the decision [to apply for euthanasia] is not driven by a lack of will to live, but by the absence of appropriate care options that would allow him to remain at home with dignity”.
Gill said, “If he had appropriate care, and there was enough of it, he would be able to cope better”. Highlighting the financial difficulties of caring for her husband, she said “This month, I’m already over budget”. Gill added that the care system is slow to respond to her requests for reassessment, which are required due to her husband’s condition changing rapidly.
Critics have pointed to the contrast between the availability of assisted suicide and euthanasia and Tony’s struggle to access adequate funding and care for his condition. Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism, said “Lewis wants to go on living but believes his financial situation makes that impossible”.
He added, “This same kind of abandonment has happened in Canada, too. But euthanasia? Never a problem of access! Is it any wonder that disability rights activists oppose hastened death?”
Commenting on Tony’s story, former Associate Professor of Bioethics at St Mary’s University, London, Dr Trevor Stammers said “It will happen here [in the UK] if assisted suicide becomes legalised”.