Posted on Thursday 9th February 2017 at 9:53pm

You only have to look to understand who is campaigning against your right to choose an assisted death in the face of intolerable and unrelievable suffering.

A case in point is a massive advertisement published in both of Melbourne’s daily newspapers: News Corp’s The Herald Sun (right-wing) and Fairfax Media’s The Age (left-wing). The ad was published in 2008 when Victorian MLC Colleen Hartland introduced the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill into the State legislature.

Posted on Thursday 3rd November 2016 at 10:05pm

In two opinion pieces recently published in the ABC’s conservative Religion & Ethics blog,^1,2 Margaret Somerville, Professor of Bioethics at Notre Dame University, railed against marriage equality law reform using reasoning that I contend fails not only appropriate standards of ethics argument but indeed her own stated standards. Here’s why.

Railing against careful and reasoned language

In two ABC opinion pieces, Margo (as she refers to herself) railed extensively against the term ‘marriage equality,’ arguing that it ought to be referred to instead as ‘same-sex marriage.’ She volunteers that the real motive for her preferred term is that in her opinion fewer people will support ‘same-sex’ marriage than will support ‘equality’ of marriage.

Posted on Sunday 16th October 2016 at 12:03am

The Discovery Institute's Wesley Smith is at it again. In his latest anti-assisted-dying tirade published by LifeNews.com, he promote lies about the Dutch Groningen Protocol, despite my published detailed analysis — of how that regulation actually works in practice — providing ample evidence to disprove Mr Smith's polemic theories.

Creationism…with lipstick

Posted on Saturday 24th September 2016 at 11:31pm

Against current moves to legalise assisted dying, Australian Catholic Father John George invokes Nazi Germany, resorts to ad hominem attacks to dismiss those who disagree with him, and demands that the Pope’s edicts are binding on everyone regardless of their own faith or world view.

On 24th September 2016, Journalists Greg Brown and Rick Morton published an article in The Australian, Victorian coroner credited with turning tide on euthanasia, summarising recent Australian moves to legalise assisted dy

Posted on Saturday 3rd September 2016 at 4:44am

I recently exposed (another) piece of misinformation published by LifeSiteNews, and wrote courteously to them to request withdrawal of the offending article. While I wasn’t hopeful the request would be accepted, I wasn’t prepared for the shocking and vile response I received.

Exposing bull about assisted dying is a key purpose of DyingForChoice.com and it will continue to do so as long as bull is published or publicly spoken, and especially when it makes claims or generates innuendo that is at odds with the readily-available facts, as a smokescreen for fundamentally religious objections.

The specific request to withdraw

Posted on Wednesday 3rd August 2016 at 4:15am

Assisted dying critic Mr Paul Russell has done it again. I’m beginning to think that he’s a tremendous asset to the pro-assisted-dying movement. Why would I say that?

Well, this time his pronouncements appear in National Right To Life News, the online newspaper of the USA Catholic-founded National Right To Life Committee, and in which Mr Russell represents ‘HOPE,’ his anti-euthanasia lobby platform founded by the Australian Family Association—itself Catholic-founded and backed.

The complaint

Posted on Sunday 8th May 2016 at 9:48pm

Well it didn't take long. Recently I posted a fact-based report card on Dutch euthanasia practice, based on the actual data from the 2015 annual report (and all the earlier reports) of the Dutch Euthanasia Commission. Now, just a few days later, conservative religious opponents have begun publishing completely untrue statements about Dutch euthanasia practice.

Catholic blog LifeSiteNews' 'Paris correspondent' Jeanne Smits has bolted out of the misinformation blocks, assertively and categorically stating in respect of the small increase in number of euthanasia cases from 2014 to 2015, that:

Posted on Wednesday 25th November 2015 at 8:00pm

On Wednesday 19th November 2015, the Catholic Church appeared before the Victorian Parliament's Legal and Social Issues Committee. Monsignor Anthony Ireland, the Episcopal Vicar for Health, Aged and Disability Care, and Father Anthony Kerin, Episcopal Vicar for Life, Marriage and Family gave evidence about end-of-life decision making. They made a factually wrong allegation about Oregon during their testimony.

Anthony Ireland spoke first, making it clear that they were appearing before the Committee with delegated authority from the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne (Denis Hart) and with the endorsement of the Victorian Catholic Bishops. He emphasised that "the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne does not come to this Committee with fanciful or frivolous arguments."

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

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.

Posted on Tuesday 8th September 2015 at 5:16am

It was inevitable, the latest attempt by senior British clergy to persuade politicians to reject Lord Joffe’s Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill. Led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby—whose predecessor Lord Carey now supports the reform—nine clergy sent a letter to ‘remind’ Parliament of supposed terrible consequences.

So what points did the clerics offer to Parliamentarians, and are they valid? Let’s take a look at each of the five ‘reasons’ advanced in order to deny Brits assisted dying choice.

Posted on Thursday 23rd July 2015 at 1:22am

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews reports that he doesn’t support voluntary euthanasia “at this stage” (The Age, 21 Jun 2015), and that his objections are not based on his Catholic faith. I think it is fair to take him at his word given his historical record in facilitating conversation and reform around values-based issues such as abortion. But his current thinking on assisted dying is indefensible as I explain.

Posted on Sunday 14th June 2015 at 4:28pm

In today’s Fairfax press, Sydney woman Mary Ticinovic advances a number of reasons as to why she believes that assisted dying is not merciful. The by-line identifies her as a “clinical psychologist”. But her arguments are not founded on the basic tenets of psychology. How so?

Read Mary’s opinion piece in The Age

All life is precious