As Queensland MPs prepare to vote for or against a bill to allow euthanasia, Australian Jesuit academic Fr Frank Brennan has raised major concerns with the Queensland legislation that goes further than laws that already exist in four Australian states.
Fr Brennan, rector of Newman College at the University of Melbourne and whose grandfather was a member of the Queensland parliament, points to three glaring excesses of Queensland’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill (VAD).
“First, under Victorian law a registered health practitioner is not allowed to initiate discussion about VAD with a patient or resident to whom they are providing health or professional care services,” Fr Brennan said.
“Of course, they can provide all necessary information and opinions once the patient or resident initiates the conversation.
“Under the Queensland bill the health practitioner is allowed to initiate the discussion.
“They can even make an unsolicited suggestion of VAD provided they tell the patient about other options, including palliative care.
“The last thing ageing, sick people need is a caste of evangelising health practitioners prompting them to consider VAD. The Victorian law precludes that; the Queensland bill encourages it.”
Second, Fr Brennan said the Queensland bill differs to other laws on the issue conscientious objection.
Under Victorian law a doctor can ‘buy out’ of all aspects of VAD by informing their patients they have a conscientious objection to being involved in VAD, Fr Brennan said.
The new Queensland bill would force a doctor who views VAD as morally unacceptable to provide the patient with information about another provider ‘who, in the practitioner’s belief, is likely to be able to assist the person with the person’s request’.
“This extra clause not found in the Victorian law risks trampling unnecessarily on a health provider’s conscience,” Fr Brennan said.
Thirdly, unlike laws in other states, provisions in the Queensland bill would allow terminal patients at faith-based hospitals and aged care facilities to end their lives there, if they were too sick to be moved somewhere else.
This has riled Catholic-run health organisations that provide about 20 per cent of beds in Queensland hospitals and aged care facilities, and vehemently oppose euthanasia.
The Queensland bill “will upset some nursing home residents who would prefer to be left in peace, violate the consciences of some of Queensland’s finest health practitioners, and interfere with the smooth operation of some of Queensland’s finest hospitals and aged-care facilities,” Fr Brennan said.
