Aged Care Insite Issue 94 | April-May 2016 | Seite 14

news

Euthanasia still
divides officials
Many see a means to end
unnecessary suffering, while
others fear gross abuses.

T

he contested issue of euthanasia
returned to prominence in early
2016, following an impassioned
speech by Liberal Senator Ian Macdonald.
He recounted to Parliament how he
watched his mother starve herself to death
to end her suffering, and said he believes
Australians should have the right to die
with dignity.
It was “an awful way to go”, Macdonald

12 agedcareinsite.com.au

said of his mother’s death, following an
eight-year battle in the wake of a paralysing
stroke. Last year, he watched the same
agony inflicted upon his sister.
“I spent as much time with her as I could
but she used to often say to me, ‘Ian, if only I
could go,’“Macdonald said. “I often said to my
wife as we were coming home from visiting
my sister, ‘We wouldn’t do this to our cat.’ ”
Macdonald said he euthanised his cat
because he couldn’t bear to watch it
suffer, but “when it comes to people, we
sort of tolerate it”.
Should he ever be in that position,
he’d want the right to decide how long

he stayed alive, suffering.
Liberal Democrat Senator David
Leyonhjelm is looking to repeal a
1997 federal law banning the ACT and
Northern Territory from legislating to
allow assisted suicide.
Leyonhjelm said he believes people have a
right to make decisions about their own lives
and is calling for an end to “extraordinarily
cruel” laws banning euthanasia.
Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi,
however, said it was inconsistent for
Australia to legalise assisted suicide
while spending millions treating mental
illness, warning euthanasia laws had got
out of control overseas.
“Once we open this Pandora’s Box, we
do not know what’s going to come out of
it,” Bernardi said. “[It could mean] people
not even consenting to euthanasia being
killed by nurses without reference to a
doctor, [or euthanasia for] children, people
with anorexia, people with depressive
illnesses. I just find that extraordinary, yet
that is the absolute lived example.”
Family First Senator Bob Day said often it
was family members, not the patient, who
wanted suffering to end, sometimes with
ulterior motives.
“No matter how many safeguards … the
hunger for power, revenge or money can
steer its way around many hurdles.”
Labor frontbencher Doug Cameron said
it was horrendous to watch loved ones die
a long and painful death, having watched
several friends come to excruciating ends
from diseases such as mesothelioma.
“If we are a community that cares about
[one another], we should care about how
people die – about the suffering of people.”
Health minister Sussan Ley said she was
personally opposed to euthanasia, while
former prime minister Bob Hawke said he
believed it should be legal. n