Rhetoric

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Mr Steve Jalsevac of the Catholic LifeSiteNews blog who made a shocking and vile attack.

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

In a recent article I factually rebutted the allegation by Mr Brad Mattes that there is suicide contagion (from assisted dying to general suicide) in Belgium, in addition to other statements that were wrong in fact in his opinion piece published by LifeSiteNews. I wrote a courteous letter to the editor of LifeSiteNews to point out the errors and to seek withdrawal of the article. 

My full email to LifeSiteNews

Dear LifeSiteNews,

Clearly we are on different sides of the assisted dying conversation. I’m sure that we can mutually appreciate that different people bring different perspectives and apply some largesse in terms of world views.

However, one must draw the line (as your primary Principle does and upon which I think we agree) at the publication of information, however accidental, on your website that is in places fundamentally misleading and elsewhere quite false.

In this regard may I request that you withdraw the article by Mr Brad Mattes, Assisted suicide no longer just for the terminally ill, that contains multiple errors of evidential fact as well as fundamentally misleading statements, as I point out in this post?

Kind regards
Neil Francis

 

The shocking response

A firm believer in courteous debate even when one disagrees profoundly on important matters, I thought the most likely outcome would be a polite letter declining my request. But I received instead this response from LifeSiteNews Managing Director, Mr Steve Jalsevac.

Full response by Mr Steve Jalsevac of LifeSiteNews

Dear Neil,

I find it somewhat amusing that an advocate for legislation to allow people to kill themselves is demanding that we withdraw an article for supposedly publishing "misleading" or "false" information.

After many years of covering organizations such as yours which, typically cruelly manipulate vulnerable persons, violate or liberally interpret laws, understate their longer term objectives, have an extremely unhealthy and dangerous satisfaction in personally seeing people die before their eyes before their natural time, devastate family members whose loved ones had, unknown to them, been guided to kill themselves, and who have such perverse and wrong views on Christian beliefs and much more, I find it despicable that you would be so concerned about supposed accuracy. You, sir, are a hypocrite of the very worst kind. 

It is our view that you should be behind bars for what you advocate and for your dangerous manipulation of vulnerable persons.

I realize that you will not agree with anything that I write given how blinded your conscience and intellect have become by your death preoccupation. So, I just conclude that your claims, views and interpretations are all rejected because no one should trust anything that you say or do on this subject.

Steve Jalsevac
LifeSite

 

Who is LifeSiteNews, anyway?

LifeSiteNews is an online blog established by the conservative Christian Campaign for Life Coalition. It promotes that it “emphasizes the social worth of traditional Judeo-Christian principles.” Its principles are all very courteously worded and sound “respectful” (its principles expressly use that word several times) whilst indicating that it is a pro-life blog.

I’ve read its articles on assisted dying for several years and have not found a single one that is at odds with the position of the Vatican. That’s hardly surprising.

LifeSiteNews publishes a significant proportion of articles about the Catholic Church, as is its right. It is also the sole publisher of Faithful Insight, in its own words “hard-hitting,” “100% faithful” and “fearless Catholic news coverage from the Vatican and beyond.” I argue strongly for the right to publish material of faith. That is not a source of complaint. (Fair disclosure—I’m agnostic.)

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LifeSiteNews' hard-hitting and 100% Catholic-faithful publication.

And, Mr Jalsevac gives a clear indication that he’s at the 'Old School' end of the Catholic spectrum. He admires in multiple blogs the writings of conservative African Catholic Bishop Robert Sarah, noting John Paul II’s teachings as “definitive” and expressing disappointment in the current Pope. And that's entirely his right I again affirm.

Mr Jalsevac’s editor-in-chief, Mr John-Henry Westen has also published a number of articles critical of Pope Francis, also referring to previous Popes as more authoritative.

What do they claim to stand for?

LifeSiteNews’ first principle, in full, is this:

1. Accuracy in content is given high priority. News and information tips from readers are encouraged and validated. Valid corrections are always welcome. Writing and research is of a professional calibre.”—LifeSiteNews.com

Mr Jalsevac's response highlights these claimed principles in stark relief by comprehensively breaching them.

Additionally, not only have I pointed out multiple falsehoods and inaccuracies in Mattes’ article, but I’ve reported LifeSiteNews previously for implying in a splashy headline that the Council of Europe had determined that “euthanasia must always be prohibited” (it most certainly did not), and publishing false information in multiple articles claiming that as many as 650 babies are or could be euthanized in the Netherlands (no they aren’t).

The ad hominem attack

The statements Mr Jalsevac makes about me are vile. And false. While I’m calling out his blogs’ misinformation for what it is, he’s calling for me personally to be thrown in jail for sins he falsely thinks I’ve committed. That’s squarely known as the ad hominem attack: attacking the person rather than the argument. It conveniently provides him with the excuse to totally ignore solid evidence that contradicts his beliefs.

Interestingly, an article by LifeSiteNews Editor Mr Westen quotes Pope Francis as saying,

We Catholics have some — and not some, many — who believe in the absolute truth and go ahead dirtying the other with calumny, with disinformation…”—Pope Francis.

Quite.

Conclusion

LifeSiteNews is an 'Old School' Catholic blog, and, I argue, has every right to be.

However, it has demonstrated by publishing multiple articles containing serious errors of fact as well as highly misleading statements, and by a gratuitous ad hominem attack on someone pointing this out, that it is not interested in evidence, reason or even civility as it claims. In my view it has unambiguously demonstrated itself to be a biased and unreliable Catholic source on matters of assisted dying.

I will continue to call out misinformation in LifeSiteNews when I see it.


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Mrs Inga Peulich of the Victorian Parliament.

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.

She has previously made clear her personal opposition toward assisted dying law reform. It's no surprise then that she wrote a minority report against her own Committee's final recommendations. What is surprising is the incoherence of her report.

They're biased but I'm not

Mrs Peulich rails against the inquiry being held in the first place, saying that she outright opposed the call. It's curious then that she remained on the Committee once the inquiry was mandated by the Legislative Council.

Even more telling is that Mrs Peulich accuses her fellow Parliamentary Committee members of unmitigated bias—that they simply reached a foregone conclusion. Not only does such hubris demonstrate a breathtaking disregard for the dedication and professionalism of her fellow Parliamentarians, it reveals a comprehensive failure of self-reflection: that other members are biased for the possibility of a supportive stance, but she is not for her preset and entrenched opposition.

The criticism is all the more galling for the fact that Mrs Peulich missed a number of meetings to hear from expert witnesses. Other members were informed and their position changed or at least nuanced by the evidence and advice.

The ramble

Mrs Peulich's minority report then launches into a ramble of conjecture, raising many of the tired old discredited arguments against assisted dying without reference to a single cited fact; incoherently even making points that the Committees' final report (hundreds of pages, fully cited) can't support...and ones that I specifically, comprehensively and evidentially refuted in my submission to and expert witness appearance before the Committee.

At least one appropriate omission

I can say that in response to a question Mrs Peulich asked me about non-voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands, in what she might have anticipated as a 'gotcha' moment, I used empirical scientific evidence to blast the premise of her question—that legalisation of voluntary euthanasia has increased the rate of Dutch non-voluntary euthanasia—out of the water. The rate has dropped dramatically, not increased. At least she didn't raise that hoary old Dutch chestnut directly in her report.

Selective perfectionism

It would be tedious to address every item of unsupported conjecture and misinformation in Mrs Peulich's report. However, one other claim is worthy of discussion. It's an argument she's made before. She says this in regard to assisted dying law reform:

"...people will die as a result of accident, error or misdiagnosis. Any accidental loss of life – even the loss of one life, means such a regime cannot be justified."

Putting aside for the moment the premise of the statement, Mrs Peulich's selectivity is remarkable.

Published scientific research shows that of hospital admissions (Australia), around 0.4% result in death as a consequence of preventable medical error.1 The study was published some twenty years ago, so let's assume that the error rate has dropped—by virtue of greatly improved record keeping, communication, transparency, procedures and technology since then—by a factor of ten: that is, a preventable medical error death rate of 0.04%.

That still means that at least dozens of Victorians die each year as a result of preventable medical error.

If Mrs Peulich argues that no system can be justified if it results in the erroneous loss of a single life, then she must equally argue for the closure and prohibition of the entire Victorian hospital system. Or admit that she's irrationally biased against the option of assisted dying.

Missing critical Oregon 'information'

Yet the most telling thing is what is missing from Mrs Peulich's minority report.

On April 8th 2010, as keynote speaker and in her capacity as member of the Victorian Parliament, at Australian Catholic University's Interfaith Symposium on Death and Dying, she made this unequivocal statement:

"The Oregon experience, which legislated the taking of medication to bring about euthanasia indicates unfortunately that it does occur, that older patients who are tapping into more expensive care are encouraged often to bring about their own earlier demise."

Such a situation would be a very, very serious matter indeed.

But did Mrs Peulich furnish any evidence to support her allegation? No, none whatsoever.

If she believes this matter to be true, and it would be of critical importance to the inquiry to which she was directly a party and would strongly support her case against reform, why does it not appear in her minority report?

Mrs Peulich, put up or apologise

The claim is bunkum. Having extensively studied dozens of reports about and scientific studies into practices in Oregon and personally interviewed key Oregonian stakeholders (for, against and neutral), I have found not a shred of evidence that supports Mrs Peulich's categorical assertion.

I expressly challenge Mrs Peulich to furnish the necessary, verifiable, authoritative evidence (not mere self-serving gossip and scuttlebutt), and to explain why it does not appear as evidence to her own Committee's investigation.

If she is unable to provide such evidence or satisfactorily explain its absence from her minority report, it is my view that she owes the people of Victoria an apology for the spreading of misinformation on the taxpayer's tab.

A dead bat to this challenge would only serve to highlight that her claims are rubbish and that this kind of approach deserves no place in the important public discourse about assisted dying.

 

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1. Wilson, Ross McL, Runciman, William B., Gibberd, Robert W., Harrison, Bernadette T., Newby, Liza & Hamilton, John D.. 1995. The Quality in Australian Healthcare Study. Medical Journal of Australia 163: 458-471. 

 


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Bulldust is often advanced by opponents of assisted dying law reform—a reform which most citizens want—to scare or bamboozle us against the reform.

Why is there so much misinformation about? The answer is straightforward: because so far it's worked.

More than academic niceties

This isn't just an academic argument about getting the facts right. It's a fundamental battle between different world views, where misinformation against assisted dying law reform has often held sway. Here are just two real examples:

Examples of real impacts of misinformation

  1. In Australia, in every Parliamentary debate over an assisted dying Bill before them, numbers of opposed politicians have quoted the rhetorical sham "the vulnerable will be at risk" (see why it's a sham here). With the exception of the Northern Territory's Rights of the Terminally Ill Act in 1996, every Bill before Australian Parliaments has been lost or filibustered until the end of the Parliamentary term on this fearmongering. And the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act was annulled by the Federal Parliament in 1997 on the same grounds.
     
  2. In Ireland, the High Court made a determination as to whether Marie Fleming, with advanced multiple sclerosis, was constitutionally allowed to receive assisted dying (Fleming v. Ireland and Ors 2012 10589 P). The court rejected Fleming's claim, saying that the "strikingly high" rates of non-voluntary euthanasia in Switzerland, Netherlands and Belgium "speaks for itself as to the risks involved". But sound research shows that the rates in these countries are similar to rates in other countries without assisted dying laws: evidence of the high degree of 'evidential' bull that was served up to their Honours.

It's time to stop the bull in its tracks

DyingForChoice.com believes it's time for the bull, the misinformation, to stop. It is unacceptable for rational citizens to be denied freedoms on the basis of scaremongering and erroneous information. This is the purpose of the F files. It provides citizens, politicians, policy advisors, healthcare workers, media professionals, researchers and others the evidence, arguments and resources to be properly informed and to avoid misinformation.

 

The F Files

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The F files
 

The public conversation about assisted dying law reform has been influenced by misinformation from opponents for far too long. Often, misinformation is simply given in ignorance, but sometimes not. It is mandatory that a conversation as important as assisted dying for those suffering at the end of life is informed by accurate information and evidential and reasoned views. Arguments that deceive or attempt to shut down the conversation have no place.

Whether misinformation is Fearmongering, Filibuster, Flip-flop, Flapdoodle, Fudge, or Fiction or Faith, the F files identifies misinformation and those who are providing it.

You can help by sending records of misinformation claims to us, and asking claimants to correct the errors.

 

Fundamental forms of misinformation

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Fearmonger

Represent something as considerably more sinister or dangerous than it is when judged by objective criteria.

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Filibuster

Artificial and overly-lengthy process used in an attempt to stall or block a political outcome.

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Flip-flop

Multiple inconsistent or opposed arguments used to justify a position.

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Flapdoodle

An argument that superficially seems intuitively attractive, true or real, but is in fact meaningless or nonsensical.

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Fudge

Unscientific analysis (e.g. selective data) used to support an argument that is not supported by proper, full analysis.

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Fiction

A thing that is untrue, or invented or feigned by imagination with no sound or verifiable evidence.

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Faith

An argument that all others should adhere to a particular religion's values, tenets and rules.

 

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