Australia

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.

His argument that any boundary in regard to who may qualify would be arbitrary is to overlook the intrinsic boundary-ness of law. A minor (under 18) cannot lawfully buy alcohol. A person may not lawfully participate in ‘sophisticated’ investments unless they earn more than $250k a year. We accept legal boundaries as normal and necessary even if some feel a particular boundary is arbitrary. Necessarily, some will be excluded.

Further, arguing against assisted dying law reform on the principle that it’s ‘complicated’ is to argue against law in any case of alleged complexity. Marriage and divorce are complicated. Should we outlaw those?

Dr McGee’s arguments lack coherence and consistency and comprehensively fail to mount a persuasive case against the legalisation of assisted dying.

 

Keywords: 

Flapdoodle | Euthanasia | Australia | Legislative reform

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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.

Confused language

Firstly, he's confused involuntary with non-voluntary euthanasia.

Involuntary euthanasia is the deliberate hastening of the death of an individual in contravention of the express wishes to the contrary of that individual.  Nobody (except the Australian Christian Lobby in its confusion) is seriously suggesting that involuntary euthanasia happens in the Netherlands, even as a 'result' of the country's euthanasia law.

Non-voluntary euthanasia is the deliberate hastening of the death of an individual without an explicit request from that individual. Increased doses of analgesics and sedatives are administered to alleviate intractable symptoms at the end of life, as a result of discussion between doctors and the patient's family (the patient is not currently competent to participate in decisions). The drugs may hasten death and if this happens, life is shortened by hours, or less often, days. Despite claims by some assisted dying opponents that this is unique to the Netherlands, scientific research shows clearly that the practice occurs all over the world and is not 'caused' by voluntary euthanasia laws.

ACL staff sing from the same hymn book

Daniel Flynn, Victorian Director of the Australian Christian Lobby, made a similar claim in a formal submission (#694) to the Victorian Parliament's Inquiry into End Of Life Choices:

"There is sufficient evidence to suggest that involuntary euthanasia is frequent in jurisdictions in which euthanasia has been legalised." [p 4.]

Not a shred—let alone 'sufficient'—evidence was offered to back up this silly myth, though it's hardly surprising given that there isn't any.

What does the evidence actually show?

The scientific evidence is crystal clear and it is the opposite of Lyle Shelton and the Australian Christian Lobby's claim. Since around 1985 the Netherlands had permitted assisted dying by regulation: under agreement amongst relevant authorities. The rate of non-voluntary euthanasia remained relatively unchanged under this arrangement (Figure 1). In 2002 the Netherlands' euthanasia Act came into effect, replacing regulatory arrangements with a comprehensive set of legislative (i.e. statutory) requirements.

 

Figure 1: Netherlands and UK non-voluntary euthanasia rates

Since 2002, the rate of non-voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands has dropped, not risen.¹ The drop is statistically significant. The rate of non-voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands is now around the same level as in the United Kingdom.² The UK is generally accepted as the world's gold standard in palliative care practice and it does not have an assisted dying law.

Absolutely contrary to the claim of the Australian Christian Lobby's Lyle Shelton, the rate of non-voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands has dropped, not risen. It's now similar to the rate in the UK, which has no assisted dying law.

ABC news standards

Since the ABC moved the Q&A program from its entertainment division to its news division there is a heighted obligation on the broadcaster to ensure that the show's content is reason- and evidence-based, and not merely a platform for anyone to promote silly misinformation in support of a perspective.

No doubt the ABC will rise suitably to the occasion of discouraging misinformation and ensuring that any is corrected.

We'll be watching the next episode of ABC Q&A closely to fact check anything Mr Shelton and others say about assisted dying law reform. Give us a bell if you spot anything you know or suspect is untrue.

---------------

1. Onwuteaka-Philipsen, BD, Brinkman-Stoppelenburg, A, Penning, C, de Jong-Krul, GJF, van Delden, JJM & van der Heide, A 2012, 'Trends in end-of-life practices before and after the enactment of the euthanasia law in the Netherlands from 1990 to 2010: a repeated cross-sectional survey', The Lancet, vol. 380, no. 9845, pp. 908-915.
2. Seale, C 2009, 'End-of-life decisions in the UK involving medical practitioners', Palliative Medicine, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 198-204.

 

Keywords: 

Fearmonger | Fiction | Faith | Assisted dying (AD) | Involuntary euthanasia (IVE) | Non-voluntary euthanasia (NVE) | Voluntary euthanasia (VE) | Australia | Netherlands | Religion | Christian | Lobbying: Opponents | Rhetoric: Killing | Rhetoric: Slippery slope

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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.

On ABC's Australian Story on Monday night, "My conscience tells me", patient Mr Bernard Erica clearly volunteers that this is utter nonsense, and that like former journalist Mr Steve Guest, who Dr Syme also provided advice and medication to control the end of his life, Mr Erica in no way felt Dr Syme was a threat of any kind. Indeed, like Mr Guest, he has experienced profound and lasting relief from the very knowledge he would have control if and when the time for him came.

Mr Erica's GP, who was aware of and seemed initially supportive of Mr Erica's stance and Dr Syme's advice and medication, lodged a complaint with AHPRA when the ABC's Australian Story contacted him (the GP) for an interview in relation to the case, it was explained on Australian Story. Did this doctor suddenly feel frightened into 'protecting his own arse'?

AHPRA need to hear from ordinary Australians, and doctors, that they disagree with the stance it has taken in relation to Dr Syme's careful and compassionate consultations with dying patients. Indeed, to oppose careful and considered medical assessment that providing control is the only way for this particular patient to obtain relief from intolerable psychological suffering—of the State's refusal to allow rational and deeply valued paths to death—is to condemn such patients to a high chance of violent and undignified suicide.

In a key submission to the Victorian Parliament's current inquiry into end-of-life choices, the Coroner's Court of Victoria reported that, after intensive and exquisitely careful analysis, rejecting any equivocal cases, 8.5% of suicides in Victoria are of dying persons experiencing unrelievable and intolerable suffering, and for whom current law does not provide a compassionate and peaceful doctor-assisted death.

By reprimanding Dr Syme for his careful and considered private medical practice and for placing additional conditions on his medical license, it is my view that AHPRA becomes complicit in violent suicides amongst the terminally ill. Thus it is AHPRA and not Dr Syme who represents a 'serious danger' to terminally ill patients.

I wrote to AHPRA to express my displeasure at their failure to recognise contemporary community standards, which are enormously in favour of providing terminally ill people the right to a peaceful, doctor-assisted death. Here is what I said.

 

 

I urge you to write to AHPRA as well, which you can do here. Scroll down the page to use the web form.

Let us know what response you receive.

 

Keywords: 

Assisted dying (AD) | Physician-assisted dying (PAD) | Australia | AHPRA

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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."

During question time. Committee Chair Edward O'Donohue asked the Vicars if they had any evidence from lawful jurisdictions to back up their claim that legalising assisted dying would result in a significant reduction in medical research. The Vicars flailed about with vague hypotheticals, but no evidence.

Committee Deputy Chair Nina Springle remarked that some of their testimony was inconsistent with direct evidence from lawful jurisdictions and invited them to reflect on the contradictions. To this, Anthony Kerin stated:

"We know, for example, since Oregon legislated, that the standard suicide rate has increased remarkably and alarmingly. It's not yet the largest rate in the US, but it's getting there, when Oregon had a very, very low suicide rate prior to that."

Let's not mince words: the allegation is comprehensively false. In fact it's three false statements all wrapped up into one.

The USA government's CDC mortaility database provides solid empirical data. Here's Oregon's longitudinal suicide rate statistics, including sixteen years before its Death With Dignity Act (DWDA), and sixteen years after.

Here are the pertinent facts about Oregon's general suicide rate:

1. The average for the 16 years after the DWDA is lower than, but not statistically different from, the 16 years prior to the Act.
2. There was a massive drop in the suicide rate two years after the DWDA came into effect, and the rate has risen only from there.
3. The rise from 2000 onwards is repeated in the majority of USA states and in the national average. The trend increase in Oregon is not statistically different from the national trend increase.

 
By way of comparison, here's Vermont's suicide rate for the same period.

Now, Vermont didn't have an assisted dying law until 2013, and no assisted deaths occurred under the law in that year, so the suicide rate cannot have been affected by an assisted dying law. Yet the picture is similar to Oregon's.

Here's the USA national suicide rate for the same period, with the unemployment rate added.

There are numerous and complex reasons for suicide and for changes in the rate, but a key one in this USA case is unemployment, which after falling in the 1990s rose abruptly from 2000 onwards.

Has Oregon's suicide rate been worsening relative to other USA states, though? The state annual suicide rankings are informative.

Prior to the DWDA, the trend in Oregon's suicide ranking among all USA states was deteriorating (where ranking number one is the highest suicide rate). Since the Act came into effect, the trend is improving. The difference in trends is statistically significant. In the sixteen years since the Act came into effect, Oregon has appeared in the "top ten" six times, compared with twelve times in the 16 years prior to the Act.

So, let's examine the three elements of the Catholic Church's statement:

1. "Since Oregon legislated, the standard suicide rate has increased remarkably and alarmingly"

This statement is false by omission. It is critically relevant to mention that Oregon's suicide rate dropped massively two years after the DWDA came into effect. Only after 2000 did it begin to rise—like most states and nationally—and in response to a rising unemployment rate.

2. "Oregon had a very, very low suicide rate prior to that [the DWDA]"

This statement is completely false. Oregon's mean rate suicide for 16 years after the act is not significantly different from the mean for 16 years prior to the Act. Indeed, government data back to 1968 shows Oregon's general suicide rate has always been high and never "low", let alone "very, very low".

3. It's not yet the largest rate in the US, but it's getting there"

This statement is completely false. Oregon's suicide ranking amongst USA states was worsening prior to the DWDA, but has been improving since.

It's very disappointing indeed that the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne would offer such profoundly false testimony to a legislative committee making inquiries on behalf of the people of Victoria. The offense is all the more grevious because of the unequivocal manner in which the statement was made, and that the witnesses specifically stated they did not bring any fanciful or frivolous arguments to the Committee.

It's time to comprehensively stamp out false information about assisted dying, no matter how fervently it might be believed by its proponents. Watch this space: there's plenty more to come!

 

Keywords: 

Fiction | Physician-assisted dying (PAD) | Australia | Victoria | Oregon | Catholic Church | Catholic | Rhetoric: Slippery slope | Rhetoric: Suicide 'contagion'

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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. This is the polar opposite of published empirical research evidence.

But back to precision. Tobin employs two imprecise and deeply flawed arguments in her objection to assisted dying. She variously rolls them in together, so let’s unpack what they are: (A) the “it’s only fair” slippery slope, and (B) “it’s OK if you don’t mean it”.

A: The “It’s only fair” slippery slope

Tobin directly links assisted dying for the terminally ill to “anyone who is in pain, discomfort, constipated, incontinent, depressed, anxious and so on” by way of potential “benefit”. She conjectures that increasing the restrictions to who may qualify, and the process of qualification, would then be “unfair” to these others. She then goes on to extend the argument to those lacking in decisional capacity such as infants and those with Alzheimer’s. Surely, she says, “it would be ‘unfair’ to deny these people the ‘benefit’ that we will make available to those who are able to request it?”

Slippery slope indeed. And it’s wrong. Let me illustrate how, using a topic familiar in political debate over recent years: same-sex marriage.

Opponents of same-sex marriage law reform, when using arguments of the kind Tobin offers (as they often do), say that we can’t allow two men to marry, or two women to marry, because then we would have to allow three or more people to marry. Further down the slippery slope, we would have to allow people to marry animals. Don’t laugh: such things have been argued.

Next—given that under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), companies, owners’ corporations and incorporated associations are at law ‘persons’, and now that persons may marry—it would be “unfair” (note that I’ve used imprecision quotation marks around the word as Tobin does) to disallow people from marrying companies and companies from marrying each other.

Finally, using Tobin’s own line of argument, it would be “unfair” to deny infants and those with Alzheimer’s being married off for the alleged “benefit” (those quotation marks again) that everyone else is enjoying, so we must as an unavoidable consequence of the first step of allowing same-sex marriage, allow arranged marriages for babies and those with advanced dementia.

By now it’s easy to spot two terminal flaws in Tobin’s argument.

Firstly, the use of just one criterion (“fairness”—which she leaves imprecisely undefined) as the sole basis for decision making about this legislative reform is indefensible. What about other critical factors such as well-informed, rational, decisional capacity, judging and weighing what a “benefit” is, in the face of intolerable and unrelievable suffering, consistent with one’s own values and beliefs, who may decide, and the right not to participate?

Secondly, any slippery slope’s purported summit (from which changes are argued only to slip downwards) is deeply rooted in the normativity of the present. We are used to marriage being between a man and a woman. In our relative comfort we accept it as ‘normal,’ ‘good’ and the ‘right thing’.

In decision-making scholarship this normativity is known as “anchoring”. Like an anchor around which a boat will swing according to the wind and tide, we take the pivot point (the anchor of the now), as the natural starting point for future decisions, comparing changes only to the present state of affairs.

But it isn’t a valid anchor, and assuming that it is seriously biases our thinking. We need cast our anchor back just one mooring from the current point to see how the anchor tints our decision-making spectacles:

“We can’t allow a man and a woman to marry, because then it would be unfair to not allow two men to marry, or two women to marry, and then…”

Clearly, it is imperative that we outlaw marriage altogether.

The upshot of this slippery slope, when followed properly to its own logical conclusions, is that we must deny all rights because we can confect a slippery slope into a hypothetical moral abyss for any right.

B: It’s OK if you don’t mean it

Tobin further argues that relieving distressing symptoms “is good palliative care, even when that relief happens to hasten death.”

She doesn’t name it explicitly, but this is the doctrine of double effect, an argument first crafted in the thirteenth century by Catholic priest Thomas Aquinas. The doctrine suggests that a bad consequence of an action is justifiable if the agent did not intend the bad effect, if the intended good effect outweighs the bad effect, and if the agent applies diligence in attempting to minimise the bad effect. Notice that the doctrine speaks directly about the intentions of the agent and is silent on the views of the person upon whom the agent might act.

Tobin rails against a doctor intentionally administering a lethal dose to a patient (regardless of whether it is the dying patient’s most fervent wish) and slams the expressions “dying with dignity” and “aid in dying” as “fudges”.

Yet the doctrine of double effect, for which she argues in support, is itself a fudge because it says:

“It’s OK to for a doctor to decide to and actually kill their patient (after all, they hastened the patient’s death), as long as they don’t mean to, and they mean well.”

What kind of standard is the secret stuff that goes on inside a doctor’s head without reference of any kind to the patient’s own views and desires, when compared to a fully informed, documented and tested request from the patient?

It’s no wonder that many scholars (as do I) consider the doctrine of double effect problematic.

--

Bernadette Tobin is the Director of the Plunkett Centre for Ethics, a joint initiative of St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, and Australian Catholic University (ACU). According to ACU, a core mission of the Centre is to “bring a Catholic perspective to all its endeavours”.²

It’s unsurprising then that I detected neither broad thrust nor any detail of Tobin’s ABC opinion piece that deviated from the views of the Vatican. So be it.

There are many points on which Tobin and I agree, such as the potential benefits of palliative care for the dying. I argue, though, that basic scrutiny of the proffered 'principles' reveal them as deeply flawed and unpersuasive.

 

References

1  Tobin, B 2015, Voluntary euthanasia: It can only be a way station to the non-voluntary, ABC Religion and Ethics, viewed 14 Nov 2015, <https://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/11/13/4351675.htm>.

2  Australian Catholic University 2015, About the Plunkett Centre for Ethics, viewed 14 Nov 2015, <https://www.acu.edu.au/about-acu/institutes-academies-and-centres/plunkett-centre-for-ethics/about-the-centre>.

 

Keywords: 

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

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• Out of touch
• Out of date
• Wrong about United Nations
• Wrong about Belgium’s law and practice
• Confused about advance care directives
• Winding back patient rights more than a quarter century

 

Out of touch

In his opening address, Mr Flynn opined that assisted dying was 'not supported' by a 'broad base' of Victorian Christians (not just the ACL). This belief is diametrically at odds with clear and repeated evidence from multiple sources.

In 2012, I reported on a Newspoll study into Australian attitudes towards assisted dying. Not only did a whopping majority of citizens support assisted dying, but so did a great majority of Anglicans, Catholics and other Christians (Francis 2012).

 

Newspoll 2012: Australian attitudes to assisted dying law reform by religion (green=support, red=oppose)

These national results are reflected by a sample of over 60,000 Victorians through the VoteCompass system during the 2014 Victorian election (Stayner 2014). It confirms a substantial majority of Catholics, Protestants, other religious and non-religious Victorians support assisted dying law reform.

 

VoteCompass 2014: Victorian attitudes to assisted dying law reform by religion (grey=population average)

Out of date

Mr Flynn then referred to a Tasmanian Parliament’s inquiry into assisted dying which rejected law reform. However, the inquiry to which he refers was held in 1998, when Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act had barely been established, the Northern Territory’s Rights of the Terminally Ill Act had been extinguished within just eight months of coming into operation, and the Dutch, Belgian, Luxembourg, Washington and other legislation and judgements did not yet exist.

So, the Tasmanian Parliament’s rejection came from a position of a then general lack of information. The Oregon law has been in effect since 1997, the Netherlands and Belgium since 2002, Washington since 2008, Luxembourg since 2009, and so on. There is now plenty of evidence that assisted dying law reform doesn’t cause slippery slopes that opponents love to theorise about.

Wrong about ‘United Nations’

Mr Flynn then said that the United Nations had in 2012 expressed concern about a ‘lax attitude’ towards euthanasia in Europe, specifically mentioning the Netherlands and Belgium. This is completely untrue. Because it’s easy to make a simple blooper during a presentation, we’ll put aside the fact that he meant to refer to a completely different organisation: the Council of Europe.

We know this because he read directly from Council of Europe declaration 1859 (Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly 2012). His ACL submission (Australian Christian Lobby 2015) reports (as he read out) exactly one sentence of the declaration, with his added emphasis, as:

"Euthanasia, in the sense of the intentional killing by act or omission of a dependent human being for his or her alleged benefit, must always be prohibited."

But presented in this manner the statement is quite misleading. As I explain in a forensic analysis of the misinformation campaign about this resolution (Francis 2015), the resolution was utterly clear about its intent: it was not about euthanasia (it explicitly said so), but rather about advance care planning. What the resolution spoke against (in the one sentence conveyed above) is non-voluntary euthanasia, not voluntary euthanasia. Both sides of the assisted dying debate agree that non-voluntary euthanasia (one person deciding for a hastened death on behalf of another) is not acceptable. It is not contentious.

In no way did the Council of Europe's resolution critique voluntary euthanasia or comment on any jurisdiction in which it is legal. And, the United Nations source to which the ACL submission refers was released in 2001, fourteen years ago and at the time of the Netherlands' Euthanasia Act was before the Dutch Parliament. With then limited information about how such laws work in practice, it expressed concern about the upcoming Act.

Wrong about Belgium’s law and practice

Mr Flynn referred vaguely to two cases of euthanasia in Belgium in which persons who requested and received euthanasia were not experiencing intolerable pain, which Mr Flynn asserted was a required safeguard in Belgium’s euthanasia Act. This was another supposed example of transgression of safeguards.  Wrong again.

While the Belgian Euthanasia Act is officially published only in Dutch and French, a robust English translation has been prepared under the supervision of Professor Herman Nys of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law at the Catholic University of Leuven (see Parliament of Belgium 2002). The word ‘pain’ does not appear in the Act… at all. What does the Act have to say about the legislature’s intent on who may qualify? The relevant clause in Section 1 says:

— "the patient is in a medically futile condition of constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that can not be alleviated, resulting from a serious and incurable disorder caused by illness or accident."

It’s abundantly clear: mental suffering from an illness or accident qualifies as much as physical suffering, and the suffering does not need to be ‘pain’ as Mr Flynn mistakenly asserted to the Parliamentary Committee.

Mr Flynn also stated that there are mobile end-of-life units in Belgium. There aren’t. (But there are in the Netherlands, and they must follow precisely all the same requirements as anyone else. They operate to provide choice to patients whose regular or reachable doctors disagree with assisted dying and therefore decline to evaluate whether the patient may qualify under the Act.)

Confused about Advance Care Directives

In further testimony, Mr Flynn opined that the degree to which a doctor should be allowed to override a patient’s Advance Care Directive (ACD) is in part influenced by whether the doctor can speak with the patient.

But if the patient can currently speak and participate in decision-making, the advance care directive doesn’t apply: it is mute and of no effect. An ACD only applies when the patient cannot currently participate in their own decision making. That’s (only) what it’s for.

Winding rights back more than a quarter century

But the most worrying aspect Mr Flynn’s testimony was the revelation of ACL’s opposition to the right to refuse unwanted medical treatment.

The Medical Treatment Act 1998 (Vic) has enshrined for now more than twenty five years a patient’s right to refuse any unwanted medical treatments. In 2003 the Supreme Court of Victoria determined that artificial nutrition and hydration (i.e. via tubes) is medical treatment and can therefore be refused under the Act.

But Mr Flynn repeatedly argued that withholding or withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration, if the patient’s body could ‘absorb’ them, could amount to physician-assisted suicide, and that doctors must be allowed to override refusals. On the matter of patient autonomy, he said that some autonomy rests "with the patients, but a lot of the autonomy in fact is with the doctor”.

When asked if a Jehovah's Witness who refuses a life-saving and simple blood transfusion ought to be allowed to do so, he conceded that they should be entitled to, but that such a case was a “bit of an outlier”. He didn’t explain on what moral grounds one person could refuse a simple procedure to save their life, but another person mustn’t be allowed to even if the likelihood of saving life was doubtful.              

So, the ACL’s real agenda is revealed: it recommends winding back the legislative clock more than a quarter century so as to force patients to endure some medical interventions that they don’t want and firmly refuse, if the doctor wishes to proceed.

No wonder the Committee repeatedly questioned Mr Flynn to ensure they had heard and understood his testimony correctly. In conclusion, Committee Chair Edward O’Donohue observed that Mr Flynn’s evidence was “quite surprising” and “quite contrary” to wide evidence already given.

And it’s no wonder that Theo Mackaay, General Secretary of the Victorian Council of Churches—a group of 30 member churches representing mainstream Christianity—criticised the ACL as “fundamentally conservative” and expressed “deep concern that media portrayal of statements from an established and narrow focused lobby group is presented as being representative of the entire Christian community” (Uniting Church in Australia 2011).

-----

References

Australian Christian Lobby 2015, Submission to the Legal and Social Issues Committee on the Inquiry inito End of Life Choices, Parliament of Victoria, Melbourne, pp. 1-17.

Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly 2012, Resolution 1859 (2012): Protecting human rights and dignity by taking into account previously expressed wishes of patients, Europe, 25 Jan, pp. 2.

Francis, N 2012, Australian public desire for legalisation of assisted dying in restricted circumstances, YourLastRight.com, Melbourne, pp. 11.

Francis, N 2015, Conservatives fudge Council of Europe declaration 1859, DyingForChoice.com, viewed 2 Jun 2015, <http://www.dyingforchoice.com/f-files/conservatives-fudge-council-europe-declaration-1859>.

Parliament of Belgium 2002, 'The Belgian Act on Euthanasia of May 28th 2002 (unofficial English translation)', Ethical Perspectives, vol. 9, no. 2-3, pp. 182-188.

Stayner, G 2014, Victorian election 2014: Electorate overwhelmingly back voluntary euthanasia, Vote Compass reveals, ABC News, viewed 4 Dec 2014, <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-23/victorians-back-voluntary-euthanasia-vote-compass/5910668>.

Uniting Church in Australia 2011, Australian Christian Lobby does not represent all Australian Christians, nor all Christian viewpoints, 8 Dec, Media Room, viewed 11 Dec 2011, <http://blogs.victas.uca.org.au/mediaroom/?p=971>.

 

Keywords: 

Fearmonger | Flip-flop | Fudge | Fiction | Faith | Assisted dying (AD) | Physician-assisted dying (PAD) | Refusal of medical treatment (ROMT) | Voluntary euthanasia (VE) | Voluntary refusal of food and fluids (VRFF) | Withholding/withdrawal of medical treatment (WOMT) | Australia | Victoria | Belgium | Netherlands | Australian Medical Association (AMA) | Christian | Legislative reform | Lobbying: Opponents | Rhetoric: Slippery slope | Rhetoric: Suicide

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Stating that "we've pretty much reached the limit of how old we can grow as a species", Minister Elferink estimated that elderly people with terminal illness cost the Northern Territory $1 million in health care costs in the last year of life. Even more astonishingly, he opined that the dying might be persuaded to obligingly shuffle off this mortal coil with the argument that "we can continue treatment but by discontinuing treatment your grandchildren would have a better opportunity" and "think of the work that could be achieved ... in the first year of life with $1 million".

He acknowledged that his remarks would be controversial.

No kidding.

Here are some reader comments from NT News:

"The Elf should be sacked. To say the seniors are a waste of money is abhorrent." — T. Miller

"Watch out Elf, you'll be old one day too." — Elli

"I worked all my life until 69 and paid taxes but judging from your comments us oldies are not worth saving." — Maree

"Hopefully he will lose his seat at the next election having shown us what an uncaring person he is. His statement is an insult to seniors and their loving families too." — Sue

What's wrong with his argument that ill seniors ought to nobly sacrifice themselves at the altar of general public 'good'? Plenty: but let's stick with just three, beyond the obvious fact that Northern Territory seniors are seriously offended by his comments and they vote.

Firstly, this is cheap dog-whistle politics that once again stupidly pitches one Australian against another (remember the infamous 'Leaners versus Lifters' campaign last year?) at the expense of insights and innovative solutions that satisfy everyone's needs.

Secondly, his estimate of the average cost of last-year-of-life medical costs beggars belief.

In a careful analysis of the cost of the last year of hospital care for New South Wales  patients, Kardamanidis and colleagues¹ found they varied from around $7,000 to $18,000. For the sake of argument, let's use a round figure of $15,000. And, given these are 'hospital' costs (where most dying people end up) but don't cover everything like pharmaceuticals, home care and the like, let's double it to $30,000. That's fairly consistent with figures from the USA, and is likely to be replicated across Australia.

But, heck, the Northern Territory is a vast place with many remote communities, so let's toss in an extra average $20,000 for the Royal Flying Doctor Service on top. That's a total average of $50,000.

Yet John Elferink's 'estimate' is a jaw-dropping twenty times even that generous figure. Is he off with the fairies?

Kardamanidis' study adds another dimension to our insights, too. They found that the average cost of hospital care decreased with old age: $17,927 for 65–74yo; $14,498 for 75–84yo; $10,403 for 85–94yo; and $7,028 for 95+yo. The very elderly dying use hospital services far less than those less old.

The Minister's perceptions and ageist 'formula' for self-sacrifice is seriously at odds with actual evidence.

And thirdly, his superficial, combative assessment quite overlooks excellent and readily-available solutions. It's well-established that higher differential end-of-life healthcare costs are significantly associated with attemps at life-sustaining ICU interventions (e.g. a UK study by Hanchate and colleagues²).

But there's more. An extensive multi-centre USA study by Zhang and colleagues³ reveals that simply by having better conversations with their doctors, advanced cancer patients not only reduced the amount of medical interventions, but achieved better quality of death.

By improving real conversations about the the likelihood of futility versus effectiveness of medical interventions at the end of life, balanced with information about the invasiveness or burden of enduring them, patients themselves can avoid interventions they judge to be of no net value, or even counterproductive.

So, Minister, quit the ill-informed and cheap political shots. Seek informed and practial advice and get on with the job of governing for all Territorians. Implement policies that encourage and facilitate real and meaningful conversations between patients and their doctors at end of life. The health bill will naturally go down for ethically sound—rather than ethical stink-bomb—reasons.

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1. Kardamanidis, K, Lim, K, Da Cunha, C, Taylor, LK & Jorm, LR 2007, 'Hospital costs of older people in New South Wales in the last year of life', Medical Journal of Australia, vol. 187, no. 7, pp. 383-386.
2. Hanchate, A, Kronman, AC, Young-Xu, Y, Ash, AS & Emanuel, E 2009, 'Racial and ethnic differences in end-of-life costs: why do minorities cost more than whites?', Archives of Internal Medicine, vol. 169, no. 5, Mar 9, pp. 493-501.
3. Zhang, B, Wright, AA, Huskamp, HA, Nilsson, ME, Maciejewski, ML, Earle, CC, Block, SD, Maciejewski, PK & Prigerson, HG 2009, 'Health care costs in the last week of life associations with End-of-life conversations', Archives of Internal Medicine, vol. 169, no. 5, pp. 480-488.

 

Update 25th August

Minister Elferink phoned me directly to put his case. We had a respectful if brief conversation (he was in a Parliamentary session). He said that the journalist's report had misrepresented his statements. We agreed that at the very least, the remarks he made were injudicious in the context of end-of-life, and I reiterated that I thought suggesting in any manner that people should give up part of their lives for the economic benefit of others was repugnant. I also reiterated that should the NT Government choose to invest a modest sum in the education of doctors in how to hold respectful, open conversations with patients and in a way that the truly listened to both what was being said as well as left unsaid, that patients would far less often choose futile and burdensome treatments they really didn't want. This would lead to less stress on the patient, their families and healthcare workers, and have the added benefit not only of a better quality of death, but a significantly reduced state healthcare budget.

I hope the Minister takes good evidence and advice on board, and adjusts his stance and the NT Government's approach to medical end-of-life decisions.

 

Keywords: 

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

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