Blogs with keyword: Analysis

Posted on Wednesday 6th April 2022 at 6:35pm

The voluntary assisted dying rates of both the Netherlands and Belgium have levelled off - at different, culturally-bound values - as my analysis six years ago predicted.

Through the lens of Covid lock-downs, six years ago seems like an eternity ago, doesn't it? But it was back in 2016 that I published a major analysis of voluntary assisted dying rates and practice in the Benelux lowlands, focusing a bright spotlight on the Netherlands and Belgium.

Using authoritative and robust data, I indicated that the ongoing rise in both countries' VAD rates would level out at rates that were culturally bound. This despite persistent hyperventilations of VAD opponents that most of us would eventually be "knocked off" by not-so-voluntary euthanasia. Generally, the adoption of behaviours at the societal level tends to follow a sigmoidal (stretched S-shaped) curve, and the then VAD data was consistent with this phenomenon.

Keywords: Assisted dying (AD) | Belgium | Netherlands | Analysis | Statistics

 

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Posted on Saturday 8th August 2020 at 8:39am

Support for voluntary assisted dying (VAD) in Australia continues to strengthen, including amongst religious Australians.

A recent article in The Guardian reports that most Queensland churchgoers support voluntary assisted dying (VAD), citing a recent YouGov poll commissioned by the Clem Jones Trust.

In fact, attitudes in support of VAD have been strengthening across Australia for many years, and the last few are no exception. In this analysis I explain, using impeccable Australian Election Study (AES) data gathered by a specialist team at Australian National University.

Each federal election, the AES gathers extensive demographic and attitudinal data from a substantial sample of Australians. That means we have comparable snapshots from each election in recent times, including 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010 and 2007 (though attitudes toward VAD have been asked only since 2016).

Keywords: Assisted dying (AD) | Australia | Religion | Non-religious | Christian | Anglican/Church of England/Episcopal | Catholic | Analysis | Legislative reform | Poll / survey | Statistics

 

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Posted on Sunday 12th August 2018 at 7:40am

In today’s Sydney Morning Herald, Margaret Somerville plugs her latest co-authored paper appearing in a medical journal. Trouble is, the article’s appalling rubbish containing egregious misinformation. The authors deserve ridicule and censure for it.

If there’s one thing you have to admire about Margo Somerville, Catholic Professor of Bioethics at the University of Notre Dame Australia, it’s her persistence in the face of being called out for misrepresenting facts about assisted dying. She’s at it again.

Today in the Sydney Morning Herald, Somerville was quoted spruiking her credentials via a recent publication in the peer-reviewed Journal of Palliative Care.1 Since I study the professional literature, I’m aware of said article, which was published several weeks ago. It's a shocker.

Keywords: Fudge | Fiction | Non-voluntary euthanasia (NVE) | Voluntary euthanasia (VE) | Belgium | Netherlands | Margaret Somerville | Analysis | Rhetoric

 

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Posted on Sunday 22nd July 2018 at 12:14am

The Belgium Federal Commission of Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia has released its 2016-2017 biennial report

Belgium's Federal Commission of Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia this week published its full 2016–2017 biennial report. The report is published only in French and Dutch, which places English-speaking jurisdictions at something of a disadvantage.

DyingForChoice has translated the entire report, as well as a copy of the Belgian Euthanasia Act (2002) as it currently stands with amenedments, so that English-speaking audiences can read and understand it.

A summary of key points, the full report in English, and a full copy of the Euthanasia Act, can be found in this Fact File.

Keywords: Euthanasia | Belgium | Analysis | Regulation | Statistics

 

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Posted on Monday 13th November 2017 at 6:28pm

A new report to be published this week slams Jones & Paton’s 2015 “suicide contagion” study, and Kheriaty’s editorial of it, as unscientific and containing multiple substantial instances of bias.

In the ongoing political campaign against assisted dying law reform, opponents have spread one piece of egregious misinformation after another. One of the most common is supposed “suicide contagion” from assisted dying laws to general suicide, a theory popularised by Catholic Prof. Margaret Somerville. Despite the nonsense of her claim being comprehensively exposed, she still believes that her opinion “will prove to be correct.” Two journal papers published in 2015 purported to, but didn't, establish suicide contagion in Oregon and Washington states.

Note: the report is now published here.


Keywords: Fearmonger | Fudge | Fiction | Assisted dying (AD) | USA | Oregon | Catholic Church | Margaret Somerville | Analysis | Article review | Statistics | Rhetoric | Rhetoric: Suicide 'contagion'

 

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Posted on Monday 30th October 2017 at 11:20pm

Across the country, most Coalition MPs (with notable exceptions) demonstrate themselves to be ‘unrepresentative swill’ when it comes to honouring the electorate’s wish for assisted dying law reform.

It was with tongue in cheek that I recently quoted former Prime Minister Paul Keating to wonder if politicians voting on assisted dying Bills were ‘unrepresentative swill.’ The now-obvious answer to this question has become more than just humorous, with the publication yesterday of the Hansard record of Victoria’s Legislative Assembly vote on the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2017.

How ironic it was that the very day after I quoted Keating’s slight against his then-hostile Senate, Keating himself, a conservative Catholic, would come out against voluntary assisted dying (VAD) reform.


Hansard record makes compelling reading


But, more importantly, the Hansard record of votes on the Victorian Bill in the lower house make for compelling reading.


Keywords: Assisted dying (AD) | Australia | Victoria | Analysis | Legislative reform | Poll / survey | Statistics

 

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Posted on Wednesday 18th October 2017 at 9:41pm

As the Victorian Parliament debates its Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill, shenaningans are afoot in the corridors of power.

Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating once famously branded the Senate “unrepresentative swill” for obstructing his legislative agenda. Today, the question of how representative our political masters are remains moot.

Major community support for VAD


Take voluntary assisted dying (VAD) for example. Poll after poll demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of Australians want this additional choice for people in extremis at the end of life. The impeccable Australian Election Survey (AES) conducted by Australian National University scholars last year confirmed that 77% of Australians want VAD reform, with 13% undecided and just 10% opposed.

Keywords: Filibuster | Fudge | Assisted dying (AD) | Australia | Victoria | Analysis | Legislative reform | Statistics

 

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Posted on Sunday 19th March 2017 at 11:37pm

A recently published scientific study shows that the USA states of Oregon and Washington, which legalised assisted dying in 1997 and 2008 respectively, have leading indicators for end of life choices, including home hospice care.

A scientific study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine reveals that residents of both Oregon and Washington states, which legalised assisted dying in 1997 and 2008 respectively—as well as establishing formal advance directive programs—are far more likely to experience the kind of death they prefer, and with better access to palliative care, than is the average USA resident.1

It's well-established that most westerners would prefer to die peacefully at home rather than in a medicalised or other institutional setting. Yet it is recognised by doctors and families alike that there is a kind of medical ‘conveyer belt’ to acute care at the end of life that tends to shunt the dying individual through to ICU—a place where more and more burdensome medical interventions are administered with less and less likelihood that they’ll actually provide any benefit.

Keywords: USA | Oregon | Washington (state) | Analysis | Article review

 

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Posted on Sunday 15th November 2015 at 2:38am

Catholic scholar Bernadette Tobin rails against assisted dying arguments advanced in the ABC's Q&A program this week. I explain why her arguments fail.

In a recent opinion piece in the ABC’s Religion and Ethics section, Bernadette Tobin1 rails against assisted dying, commencing with the criticism that the ABC’s Q&A discussion on the subject this week “lacked precision.” But Tobin’s opinion piece itself commits exactly this offence, as I explain.

For the sake of brevity I’ll only quickly mention that Tobin’s piece also fails on the score of accuracy. For example, she wrongly asserts that “euthanasia” means a doctor administering lethal medication to a patient. It doesn’t. “Euthanasia” simply means “good death”: nothing more and nothing less, regardless of how it occurs. Tobin also asserts that voluntary euthanasia in lawful jurisdictions has caused non-voluntary euthanasia to develop.

Keywords: Physician-assisted dying (PAD) | Voluntary euthanasia (VE) | Australia | Bernadette Tobin | Catholic | Analysis | Lobbying: Opponents | Rhetoric: Killing | Rhetoric: Slippery slope

 

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Posted on Sunday 23rd August 2015 at 10:00pm

Northern Territory Health Minister John Elferink sparks a furore over ill-informed and insensitive remarks about dying Northern Territorians.

ABC journalists Jesse Dorsett and Eleni Roussos recently reported remarks made by the Northern Territory (Australia) Health Minister John Elferink, about the cost of supporting dying patients in the last year of life. Elferink said that dying patients could be personally persuaded to forgo medical treatment specifically in order to have more money available for their grandkids' 'opportunities'. Why is he wrong and what should he do about it?

Keywords: Refusal of medical treatment (ROMT) | Withholding/withdrawal of medical treatment (WOMT) | Australia | Northern Territory | Analysis

 

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