Posted on Saturday 3rd September 2016 at 1:12am

A meeting has been held at BMA House in Tavistock Square, the home of the British Medical Association since 1925, to discuss assisted dying law reform.¹

The meeting, chaired by Lord Moynihan and attended by eminent doctors, dignitaries and the President of the Free Church Council, discussed and voted on the motion:

"That in the interests of humanity it is desirable that voluntary euthanasia subject to adequate safeguards should be legalized for persons desiring it who are suffering from incurable, fatal, and painful disease."

Posted on Sunday 28th August 2016 at 12:58am

The latest misinformation employed by assisted dying opponents is to imply that Belgium’s general suicide rate is high as a consequence of its assisted dying law: i.e. to argue the discredited 'suicide contagion' line which has in the past been peddled about the USA state of Oregon. I have demonstrated that it was false in Oregon, and I equally demonstrate here that it's false in Belgium.

Mr Brad Mattes recently published emotional anti-assisted-dying nonsense in LifeSiteNews. (LifeSiteNews is a Canadian blog site that was established by the conservative Christian Campaign for Life Coalition and which has a primary principle of promoting “traditional Judeo-Christian principles”.

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 26th June 2016 at 2:05am

Last week, Alex Schadenberg wrote—and Paul Russell republished—another nonsense article, this time about medical associations going neutral on assisted dying. They opine that there is no such thing as neutrality. And start out by getting their facts wrong... again.

Got the facts wrong yet again, lads

Posted on Tuesday 14th June 2016 at 10:22pm

Mrs Inga Peulich is MLC for the Victorian state region of South-Eastern Metropolitan and is Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs and for Scrutiny of Government. She is a member of the Parliament's Legal and Social Issues Committee, which recently recommended assisted dying law reform.

Mrs Inga Peulich is MLC for the Victorian state region of South-Eastern Metropolitan and is Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs and for Scrutiny of Government. She is a member of the Parliament's Legal and Social Issues Committee, which recently recommended assisted dying law reform.

Posted on Thursday 12th May 2016 at 4:30pm

The more anti-euthanasia campaigner Mr Wesley Smith publishes, the more I think he’s missed his true vocation as a comedian. His latest comical gig against assisted dying is a gem.

Mr Smith starts with the case of two Californian doctors found guilty of Medicare fraud: billing fake hospice care for patients who weren't terminally ill. He artfully turns the story into a series of anti-assisted-dying gags.

Who’s on first, What’s on second?

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 27th April 2016 at 11:36pm

Wesley Smith never seems to tire of spreading opinion. In another piece of published nonsense, he's proposed that USA's rise in national suicide rate is in significant part a consequence of assisted dying law in those few states that permit it (up until the most recent general suicide data that's Oregon, Washington state, Vermont and Montana). His claim flies in the face of actual evidence.

Wesley Smith is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. Remember that? It's the organisation that a USA Federal court ruled pursues "demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions," and which comprehensively lost a test case in which it tried to have 'intelligent design' (that's creationism with lipstick) taught as a 'scientific' alternative to evolution.

Posted on Sunday 24th April 2016 at 8:02am

Dr Andrew McGee, Senior Lecturer in law at Queensland University of Technology, published an opinion piece, "Why Bob Hawke is wrong about euthanasia," opposing assisted dying law reform in the Sydney Morning Herald on the 19th April. He invokes straw-man arguments and conflates different issues. 

His ‘they might choose to die too early’ argument overlooks both the current tragedy of the terminally ill suiciding by violent means, as well as that in currently lawful jurisdictions like Oregon and Washington, a third of people who qualify for their medication never take it: it provides strong psychological relief that there is another option available whether they take it or not.

Posted on Tuesday 19th April 2016 at 2:00am

The Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby, Mr Lyle Shelton, is at it again.

Yesterday, he tweeted ABC's Q&A program as thousands of people do while it is on air. His tweet was broadcast live to air as shown above. What did he say as panelists were discussing assisted dying law reform?

"Sadly voluntary euthanasia quickly became involuntary euthanasia in Holland. #qanda" LyleShelton

Mr Shelton's claim is bunkum.

Posted on Tuesday 8th March 2016 at 7:53pm

Australia's Medical Registration Board (AHPRA) has told Dr Rodney Syme that he is a serious danger to patients.

Dr Rodney Syme, who occasionally provides advice and medication for dying patients to give them control over their dying process, has been reprimanded by Australia's Medical Registration Board (AHPRA) for posing a 'serious danger' to such patients. The story has been reported widely in the media.

Posted on Saturday 2nd January 2016 at 12:35am

A new scholarly journal focused on end-of-life ethics, decision-making and practice has just been launched: the Journal of Assisted Dying. In the first article, claims by Oregon lobby group Physicians for Compassionate Care (PCC), including Doctors Bill (William) Toffler and Ken Stevens (and others) are assessed against empirical evidence and found to be completely wrong, or highly misleading as a result of selective use of data.

The new scholarly journal, the Journal of Assisted Dying, is dedicated to careful and holistic analysis of evidence in regard to the various forms of assisted dying that are lawful in a number of jurisdictions around the world... and to practices in jurisdictions where assisted dying remains illegal.

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 22nd November 2015 at 5:05am

The standing Legal and Social Issues Comittee of the Parliament of Victoria, Australia, is currently conducting an inquiry into end-of-life decision making, to inform any legislative changes required in order to reflect contemprary views and best practice.

The inquiry has certainly engaged the community: it has received a record number of submissions. The Legal and Social Issues Committee typically receives a couple of dozen submissions to any of its inquiries, occasionally even sixty or eighty. In contrast, the inquiry on end-of-life decision making has received more than one thousand (1,017) submissions.

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 Thursday 12th November 2015 at 5:35am

I was browsing the internet the other day checking out commentary on assisted dying in Oregon and Washington state in the USA, and came across an argument in The Guardian—complete with a chart of 'evidence'—that unlike in Oregon, almost all folks who receive a prescription under Washington's Death With Dignity Act (DWDA) die from taking it. 'Eh!?' I thought to myself. I've read all the Washington annual DWDA reports and analysed the data in my own spreadsheets. What The Guardian says is simply not true. How so?

In an editorial on July 18, 2014, The Guardian attempted to estimate the number of people who might use an assisted dying law if it were legalised in the UK. They noted that around a third of Oregonians receiving a prescription under the DWDA died not having taken it. But, they said, "the figures in Washington look quite different.

Posted on Thursday 17th September 2015 at 6:06am

On 16^th September 2015, the Victorian Director of the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), Dan Flynn, appeared as a witness to the Victorian Parliament’s end of life choices inquiry being conducted by the Legal and Social Issues Committee. He made a number of mistaken statements, but what was most worrisome was the revelation of the ACL’s real agenda: to wind back patient rights more than a quarter century.

• Out of touch
• Out of date
• Wrong about United Nations
• Wrong about Belgium’s law and practice
• Confused about advance care directives

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 Sunday 23rd August 2015 at 10:00pm

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?

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.