Tuesday November 2, 2010
Bill to Allow Euthanasia Legalization Introduced in Australia: Senator Hopes for Vote before Christmas
By Hilary White and John Jalsevac
MELBOURNE, November 2, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Senator Bob Brown of the Australian Green Party has introduced a private senator’s bill that would overturn a 1997 law that restricts the ability of the Northern Territory, the ACT and Norfolk Island to legalize euthanasia, reports the Herald Sun. The law would not itself legalize euthanasia, but would permit the individual states to do so.
“It ought to get to a vote before Christmas, but that really depends on the good offices of the Government and the Opposition,” Brown said, according to the ABC News. “And if they don’t want to allow it to be brought to a vote this side of Christmas it certainly will be in the first half of next year.”
Brown’s position on euthanasia has brought him into conflict with the local Catholic Church. He recently spoke out against an intervention by Melbourne’s Catholic archbishop cautioning Catholics to question candidates about their views on euthanasia in the lead up to the election in the state of Victoria.
“What they are wanting to do in terms of euthanasia is dictate to people who are suffering the indignity and pain of a terminal illness that they shall suffer and to deprive those persons of their ability to ask their doctors to, with their families, help them have a dignified end when there is no hope of recovery,” Senator Brown told ABC television. He also claimed that Archbishop Hart’s intervention would not have much impact because the Greens already embrace Christian ethics.
The issue of euthanasia is a hot one in Victoria. In September 2008, a bill that proposed to make passive euthanasia legal was defeated by a wide margin in Victoria’s parliament. That bill was co-sponsored by Greens MP Colleen Hartland and Liberal MP Ken Smith, and was supported by the Green party as well as Environment Minister Gavin Jennings and former Liberal upper house leader Philip Davis.
The Archbishop of Melbourne and the Bishops of Ballarat, Sandhurst and Sale have now issued a document, titled “Your Vote Your Values,” urging Victoria’s Catholic voters to question candidates in the upcoming election on a range of issues before deciding which candidate to vote for.
Brown quoted a poll that said 80 per cent of Victorians are in favor of voluntary euthanasia. This, he said, means that the Greens are representing the majority view and the Catholic bishops are in a small minority. The Greens also support abortion on demand and “gay marriage.”
The bishops’ document suggests Catholics ask candidates: “Will you oppose any attempt to legalise euthanasia and assisted suicide, whatever it may be called? What is your attitude towards abortion?” It does not specify a hierarchy of values but listed “Life” first, with the first suggested question being on euthanasia.
It says, “Will you oppose any attempt to legalise euthanasia and assisted suicide whatever it may be called? What is your attitude to abortion?” It also pushes candidates to answer whether they would improve services for expectant mothers and whether they would “respect the rights of conscience” for health care workers opposed to abortion.
“True religious freedom,” the bishops said, “would allow professionals, opposed to procedures such as abortion, to refuse to refer patients for procedures to which in conscience they are opposed. This is a right not currently available to health professionals in respect of abortion in Victoria.”
Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne responded to Brown’s accusation saying, “Our society will be judged by how we treat our weakest and most vulnerable – those in the womb and those who are very, very old.”
He told ABC that euthanasia is an “absolutely essential issue,” saying, “We disagree totally with the Greens’ view on this.”
The church respects the right of individual voters, the archbishop said, but “for me, of course, I could never vote for someone” who supports euthanasia.
Alex Schadenberg, head of Canada’s Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told LifeSiteNews.com, “Senator Brown must be kidding when he stated, ‘the Greens embraced Christian ethics.’
“Since when were Christian ethics related to euthanasia, which means giving physicians the right to directly and intentionally cause the death of their patients?
“Euthanasia leads to further attitudes of discrimination toward people with disabilities and threatens the lives of vulnerable persons through elder abuse and economic pressures that create a ‘duty to die’.”
Read “Your Vote Your Values” here (PDF)