Fudge

To use unscientific analysis methods or inappropriately selective data to support an argument or conclusion, where valid scientific analysis methods or use of available full data would support different conclusions.

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Multiple "non-religious" anti-VAD campaigns are being run through the Catholic Archdiocese of Hobart

If you're wondering how religious the organised opposition to voluntary assisted dying (VAD) law reform is, current ructions in Tasmania provide a marvellous petri dish of evidence.

Catholic church call to arms

Back in 2011, the now Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, wrote a lengthy, deliberative editorial against VAD, calling on the church to enlist people with no obvious religious connections to help the church fight VAD law reform. He wrote:

“The man or woman in the street … may well be open to persuasion that permissive laws and practices cannot be effectively narrowed to such circumstances”; and
“we need to research and propose new messages and carefully consider who should deliver them, where and how.”

He went on to describe how various doctor, patient, lawyer, indigenous, disability and palliative care specialist groups might be corralled into this public relations campaign. (Nowhere in this musing did he reflect that the church's expectations of VAD calamity themselves might actually be queried or tested.)

Despite this, when promoting anti-VAD messages, he argued, “we do not have to hide our religious petticoats altogether.”

However, this standard of transparency seems to have been abandoned in recent years.

Pop-up group "Live & Die Well"

Take the Tasmanian pop-up group Live & Die Well, for example. Convened just six weeks ago for the sole and express purpose of defeating Tasmanian MLC Michael Gaffney's VAD bill, its website doesn't mention religion… at all. No identified religious connections nor religious arguments of any kind. Meticulously absent.

Indeed, the anti-VAD campaigning pamphlet the group puts about expressly advises folks when writing to their MPs, "DO NOT use religious arguments".

That's quite curious given the religious backing of the group, headed by Mr Ben Smith.

The Catholic church gets busy

Who is Mr Smith? He's the Director of the Life, Marriage and Family Office at the Catholic Archdiocese of Hobart. He reports directly to Archbishop Julian Porteous.

Unsurprisingly, core attributes given in the 2017 job advertisement for which Mr Smith was the successful applicant, require deep knowledge of the Catholic church, unquestioning support for its doctrines, and “highly-developed communication skills” to promote the church's agenda.

And, Messrs Smith and Porteous' arguments are strikingly similar, as I've revealed previously.

Does Mr Smith declare this on the Live & Die Well website? Nope. He's just a "resident of Hobart".

And the other "leaders"?

The other three "team leaders" at Live & Die Well are Mrs Patricia Gartlan, Mrs Karen Dickson, and Mr Daniel Bosveld.

Mrs Gartlan is a recipient of the Catholic church's Knights of the Southern Cross National Award for services to the "sanctity of life". (Recently, her "team leader" entry has been removed from the website.)

Mrs Karen Dickson is Chair of Mothers of Pre-Schoolers (MOPS) Australia, a Christian fellowship group. She's previously campaigned against same-sex adoption, which she opined is against God's will and would result in inevitable "moral decay" and the destruction of "the very foundations upon which society is built". Predictably, she's also actively campaigned against marriage equality, likening it to "dropping a brick on your foot".

Mr Bosveld is a university student (most likely protestant) and President of LifeChoice Tasmania, a tiny student group promoting the "life from conception through [to] natural death" position. His Facebook page "Likes" more than 20 Christian groups, including the Australian Christian Lobby.

Look… over there!

The extent to which Live & Die Well exquisitely attempts to paper over its religious petticoat is exemplified by the inclusion of two articles purporting to strengthen the non-religious case against VAD law reform.

The first is a piece republished from Spectator Australia, in which an atheist says he opposes VAD law reform. Of course there are non-religious people who oppose VAD law reform: but robust survey evidence shows that they're rare, and that in fact strong opposition is strongly correlated with high religiosity. Nor are there teams of atheists actively organising others, as the churches are, to oppose law reform.

The second is an article by Mr Wesley J. Smith which tries to imply that opposition to VAD law reform is more widespread amongst humanists than it is. He's a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. Remember them? They tried and failed to have "Intelligent design" (creationism with lipstick), taught as science in US schools.

I've had words to say about his misinformation and incoherent slippery slope nonsense here, here and here. Oh, and Live & Die Well omits the real publication date of the reproduced op-ed — which is more than a decade ago — presenting it as though it's fresh and contemporary.

Another group

Another group that's been actively and vocally opposing Mr Gaffney's VAD bill is Health Professionals Say No.

A major newspaper ad against the bill was recently taken out in the group's name. It was authorised by a certain Mr Ben Smith. Yes: that's the same Mr Ben Smith who is Director of the Life, Marriage and Family Office at the Catholic Archdiocese of Hobart. And the authorisation address is… the Catholic diocesan centre of Hobart.

One might wonder who actually paid for the ad…

The who's who

The group's website advances the usual slippery slope conjectures, and promotes the video Fatal Flaws, produced by Canadian loyal Catholic, Mr Kevin Dunn. That's the "documentary" that Go Gentle Ausralia's Fatal Fraud film exposes for its extensive religious connections, revealing how it employs emotional manipulation, fear, framing and omission to sow Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) in the minds of legislators and the public.

Prominent members of Health Professionals Say No include:

  • Prof. David Kissane, a Knight of Obedience to the (Catholic) Order of Malta.
  • Dr Maria Cogolini, a Catholic bioethicist.
  • Dr Megan Best, a Catholic bioethicist who got her facts fundamentally wrong.
  • Dr Douglas Bridge who has identified his "supreme Christian calling".
  • Prof. John Murtagh who says medicine and Christian ethics are inextricably linked.
  • Prof. Ian Olver, a lay preacher.
  • Dr Peter Coleman who has called for "placing the Christian revelation at the centre of university education."
  • Dr Peter Ravenscroft, past Chairman of the International Christian Medical & Dental Association.
  • Dr Anthony Herbert, former National Secretary of the Australian Christian Medical Fellowship.
     

Too many yet too few

It also includes Victorian, Dr Roger Woodruff. That's significant because one of the group's key claims is that people will feel unduly influenced to use VAD law, i.e. too many people will die from VAD. Yet Dr Woodruff previously published an opinion in the Journal of Palliative Medicine that the most striking feature of the VAD experience in Oregon is “almost total disinterest shown by the terminally ill” due to the small numbers of VAD compared to the number of cancer deaths.

So to sum up that approach: VAD mustn't be legalised because too many people will use it, but it's not worth legalising because too few people use it. Which is it? It can't be both.

Avoiding the ad hominem fallacy

We should be sure not to reject arguments automatically just because they are made by religious people. People of faith have just as much right to be heard in the public square: otherwise one would be arguing special privileges for non-faith Australians. Standards for public discourse are necessary, however.

“Dig here”

The connection being made here is not to reject arguments because of the religion of the informant, but to identify where misinformation almost exclusively comes from. I've been writing about this for years, with exposés on deep religious misinformation like:

  • The Vatican claim that Dutch elderly supposedly go to Germany for medical treatment because they fear being euthanised in Dutch care homes (the claim causing a diplomatic crisis).
  • The Catholic church in Australia spreading grotesque propaganda about Belgium's assisted dying practices, prompting a rare, savage rebuttal from the authors of the scientific study the church misrepresented.
  • The claim that a Council of Europe resolution "banned euthanasia" throughout Europe, when the resolution did no such thing.
  • Spreading the appalling conspiracy theory that 650 babies a year are euthanised in the Netherlands when no such thing happens.
  • Catholic Professor Margaret Somerville's repeated claims, based on cherry-picked data, wrongly claiming suicide contagion from VAD laws, and loftily dismissing extensive evidential rebuttals.
  • A mathematical confection by Catholic bioethicist Dr David Jones and Catholic loyalist and economist Prof. David Paton to attempt to "prove" suicide contagion in Oregon, in which they committed ten deadly sins.
  • The above report being glowingly endorsed by a Catholic psychiatrist, Dr Aaron Kheriaty.
  • Catholic-backed Alex Schadenberg of the "Euthanasia Prevention Coalition" and Catholic "HOPE"'s Branka van der Linden polemicising an article purporting to show 'inhumane deaths' under VAD, but which established no such thing. ("HOPE" was established by the Australian Family Association, a Catholic lobby group founded by Australia's most famous lay Catholic, B. A. Santamaria).
  • Indefensible slippery slope argument from Dr Bernadette Tobin, Catholic ethicist and daughter of B. A. Santamaria.
  • Serious cherry-picking including the negation of cited source meaning, by Victorian Catholic MP, Mr Daniel Mulino, whose report is hosted online by the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.
  • Senior clerics of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne misinforming a parliamentary inquiry.
     

One could go on, but I think the point is amply made.

Conclusion

Public misinformation about VAD law reform and practice arises largely via organised religious commentators who coalesce and focus their efforts against parliamentary law reform bills.

Given how common misinformation about VAD can be from organised religious sources, it's understandable that the public and legislators alike might simply 'switch off' if a commentator reveals a religious background.

It's no surprise then that coordinated religious public relations efforts against VAD law reform try to look as non-religious and as broad-based as possible.

 

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With thanks to my friend Chrys Stevenson for contributing research details in this report regarding members of Health Professionals Say No.


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St Mary's Cathedral, Hobart, Tasmania

Hobart Catholic Archbishop Julian Porteous makes a number of incorrect representations about voluntary assisted dying (VAD) in his recent Talking Points article (Hobart Mercury 23rd Aug). And, most of his own flock disagree with his opposed stance.

Let's take a look at the facts, and the Archbishop's 'alternatives'.

NOTE: While The Hobart Mercury published Archbishop Porteous' arguments, they declined to publish this rebuttal.

Key points

  1. Archbishop Porteous wrongly equates VAD with general suicide and insinuates they are lonely deaths when they aren't.
  2. He claims that palliative care can always help, when palliative care peak bodies clearly state that it can't.
  3. He insensitively co-opts Covid-19 victims and their families into his arguments, despite them having nothing to do with VAD.
  4. He doesn't represent his own flock: three quarters (74%) of Australian Catholics support VAD, including near half (48%) who strongly support VAD. A tiny 15% are opposed.
  5. In just twelve years (2007─19), the Australian Catholic church has lost a quarter (26%) of its flock. Of those remaining, an increasing proportion, now half (50%), never or almost never attend services.
  6. Diocese Director of Life, Marriage and Family, Mr Ben Smith, encourages Catholics to write to their politicians using the same talking points as Porteous, and with express instructions "DO NOT use religious arguments".

Assisted deaths completely different from general suicide

One particularly egregious aspect of Archbishop Porteous' rhetoric is the innuendo he employs to equate VAD with general suicide, including liberally sprinkling the word "suicide" through his narrative.

But there are profound differences between general suicide and VAD. Most Australians understand that, and research shows that most Australian doctors agree.

Assisted deaths are not lonely

The Archbishop, with astonishing misjudgement, also co-opts the Covid-19 deceased into his story arc: people whose funeral can't be attended by loved ones because of government-imposed lockdown. He obliquely infers that VAD users are or will be naturally unattended by loved ones — even without imposed lockdown.

He further slathers on observations about family reconciliations during the natural dying process, with the implicit meaning that's the only dying context in which families might reconcile.

His presumptions skirt extensive evidence that one of the most treasured factors amongst both VAD law users and their loved ones is the opportunity to express love and caring, and the ability to gather and say goodbye.

Further, multiple scholarly studies show that loved ones recover from bereavement after an assisted death at least as well as those bereaved from natural death, and in some cases, better.

Contrary to Archbishop Porteous' sinister insinuations, VAD deaths can prompt families to gather, express love, say goodbye, and grieve well.

Palliative care can't always help

Archbishop Porteous also argues that palliative care "is able to manage pain and suffering" such that nobody should experience a bad death. He ought to know better: more than half of all palliative care services in Australia are delivered via Catholic institutions.

Palliative Care Australia has clearly stated that "complete relief of all suffering is not always possible, even with optimal palliative care". Even Catholic Doctor's Association palliative care specialist Dr Odette Spruyt, a past President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Palliative Medicine, has said "it is simplistic to argue that palliative care can remove all suffering at the end of life."

Both of Australia's peak palliative care bodies acknowledge that even the best care can't relieve all terrible suffering at the end of life.

Less treatment but more treatment

Then there's the incoherence of the Archbishop’s argument acknowledging that people want to avoid more medical intervention, while arguing at the same time that more medical intervention (palliative care) is always the only answer to end-of-life suffering.

What about the devout religious?

He adds an odour of hubris to this unctuous spread by noting with disapproval that "family members of those who have had difficult deaths" are the most vocal supporters of law reform. Indeed. These are real people with real experiences of when even the best palliative care can't help.

For balance, it's worth pointing out that numerous research studies show that it's the most religious who are the most vocal opponents of VAD law reform.

Numerous scholarly studies show that it's the most religious who are the most vocal opponents of VAD law reform.

But don't mention religion

It's curious then that the Archbishop — a senior cleric — invokes not a single religious statement or reference in his narrative. Perhaps he's coordinated well with his diocesan Director of Life, Marriage and Family Office, Mr Ben Smith, who advises in an anti-VAD letter-writing guide handed out at Tasmanian masses last week, "DO NOT use religious arguments".

Unsurpisingly, Mr Smith also recommends other language demonstrated in the Archbishop's opinion piece: imply that people will be vulnerable, say that palliative care is the answer, bring up the Covid-19 pandemic, and refer to assisted suicide rather than assisted dying.

Director of Hobart's Catholic Life, Marriage and Family Office, Mr Ben Smith, urges Catholics to write to their politicians to oppose VAD, but directing them “DO NOT use religious arguments”.

Far from representing the 'everyman'

Rather than use any religious references, Archbishop Porteous carefully crafts his grave implications in 'everyman' language as though the points he makes are naturally agreeable to everyone.

But he doesn't represent the great majority of Australians, four out of five (80%) of whom support VAD, according to the most recent (2019) impeccable national study from Australian National University.

Far from representing Australian Catholics

Nor does Archbishop Porteous represent the views of most Australian Catholics. The ANU study also found that three quarters (74%) of them support VAD, with only a tiny minority (15%) opposed. A staggering near-half (48%) of Australian Catholics now strongly support VAD, up from around a third (36%) just three years earlier in 2016.

Three quarters of Australian Catholics support VAD law reform, almost half of them strongly.

At the same time, the ANU study reveals that the Catholic Church represents fewer and fewer Australians. In just the twelve years between 2007 and 2019, the Catholic Church lost a quarter (26%) of its flock. Australians with no religion (41%) now outnumber Catholics by two to one (21%).

In addition, of the fewer still identifying as Catholic, there's been an increase of more than one in five — now comprising half (50%) — who never, or almost never, attend services.

It's worth emphasising that even amongst those who haven't abandoned the Catholic church altogether — the more entrenched — strong support for VAD law reform has soared.

The Australian Catholic church has lost a quarter of its flock in 12 years, and half of those remaining never or almost never attend services.

Not the best spokesperson

Amid shrinking flocks, withering attendance and a weighty jump in strong Catholic support for VAD, it's curious that the Archbishop continues to vocally push entrenched opposition. Perhaps Sydney's Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher was right when he said in 2011, "Bishops, for instance, are not always the best public spokespeople for the Church on such matters." Indeed.

As politicians are only too keenly aware, they're elected by the people, not appointed by religious officials.

Australians unambiguously show a determined and increasing appetite for lawful VAD. It would be a courageous politician indeed who resolved to trudge the road now so obviously on the wrong side of history.


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The Catholic Church's video which blatantlly misrepresents Belgium

The Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney has released a video which blatantly misrepresents scholarly research about non-voluntary euthanasia practices in Belgium. The lead author of the peer-reviewed research has slammed the video as "cherry-picked", "scaremongering" and "appalling". His full statement about the video appears below.

 

Watch the 1 minute video here.

 

Back in 1998, non-voluntary euthanasia  — or NVE — was carefully studied by Belgian scholars. It’s a problematic practice, even though often the medication doctors administered didn’t actually hasten death. They found it occured in 3.2% of all deaths.

In 2002, the Belgium parliament legalised voluntary assisted dying — or VAD.

In 2007, the Belgian scholars repeated their study and found that NVE had dropped by nearly HALF, to 1.8% of all deaths. Again in 2013, it was found to remain at a lower level, 1.7% (Figure 1).

belgiumnvechart2.jpg
Figure 1: Belgium's NVE rate has dropped dramatically since VAD was legalised

Thus, the State shining a bright light on end-of-life practices, including VAD, has resulted in improvements.

NVE has also been found to occur in every jurisdiction that’s been studied, VAD law or not, including Australia and New Zealand (Figure 2).

nvecountries.jpg
Figure 2: NVE has been found in every jurisdiction that's been studied

But the Catholic church would have you believe otherwise.

In a recent video, the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney grotesquely misrepresented a single statistic from the Belgian studies. Using cold colours and the sound of a flatlining heartbeat, the Catholic video claims Belgium’s VAD law has caused its NVE. It’s a chilling confection of innuendo that thumbs its nose at the facts.

The Belgian study the church relies on expressly points out the significant NVE drop, so it’s not like they wouldn’t know.

 belgianstudyreportsdrop.jpg
Figure 3: The study expressly points out the significant drop

It's no wonder that lead scholar of the Belgian research, Assistant Professor Kenneth Chambaere, called the Church’s video “cherry-picked", “a blatant misrepresentation”, “scaremongering” and “appalling”. Professor Chambaere's full response appears below.

Despite the unambiguous evidence, multiple Catholic lobbyists have used cherry-picked NVE rates in a similar way, like:

 
I’ve directly corrected their misleading claims before. Yet here we go again with the same unconscionable nonsense.

Interestingly, at a 2011 Catholic conference, Archbishop Anthony Fisher said:

“the man or woman in the street … may well be open to persuasion that permissive laws … cannot be effectively narrowed to such practices”

and

“we need to research and propose new messages”

Note that the Archbishop proposed... new messages. In his address he didn't propose to examine if his assumed calamities were valid or not.

The Church is entitled to opinions, but promoting misinformation doesn’t seem to be very Christian. The Church should withdraw its grotesque propaganda and apologise.

In conclusion, repeating fake news doesn’t make it true. The fact remains that Belgium’s NVE practice was considerably higher before it legalised VAD, and dropped significantly after.


Prof. Kenneth Chambaere's response in full

On viewing the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney's video on Belgian NVE, which cites Prof. Chambaere's 2007 study, Prof. Chambaere made the following statement:

13th July 2019
 
Recently, a Vimeo video of the Archdiocese of Sydney on 'Debate on Euthanasia Laws' was brought to my attention: https://vimeo.com/339920133.

As lead author of the cited research, I was appalled at the video's blatant misrepresentation of the robust and honest research that we have been conducting in Belgium. It is quite frankly an insult to us as researchers who day in day out work to generate reliable and trustworthy insights into end-of-life practice in Belgium.
 
It is clear to me that the video has cherry-picked results from our studies to the effect of scaremongering among the public. As researchers, we fully grasp the emotional, ethical and societal gravity of the euthanasia practice and therefore also euthanasia research, and we never take it lightly. We believe we are always as objective and impartial as possible, as is to be expected of independent and free research. This only adds to my duty as a scientist to respond to the video in question and correct its mistakes. The general public and politicians must have access to reliable and correct evidence.
 
First of all, the figures shown in the video do not concern euthanasia practices at all. Euthanasia is by definition always at the explicit request of the patient. What the figures do refer to are physician acts to hasten a dying patient's death without their explicit request, a separate type of end-of-life practice altogether (see further).
 
Secondly, yes, this problematic practice does exist in Belgium. But so does it exist in every other country where anyone has had the audacity to conduct research into it, euthanasia law or no euthanasia law.
 
Thirdly, the incidence of such practices has halved since the euthanasia law was enacted in Belgium.
 
Conclusion: acts of hastening death without explicit request are not a by-product of euthanasia legislation, and if anything, euthanasia legislation seems to decrease the occurrence of these practices. This conclusion features prominently in the paper cited in the video.
 
This practice even exist in Australia, and in significant numbers, according to one (potentially outdated) study. While this study was not identical to ours in Belgium, it still provides clear evidence of its occurrence in Australian end-of-life practice. The authors of the video ask whether Victoria will become like Belgium? If it means diminishing rates of these questionable practices, then surely becoming more like Belgium is a good thing!
 
Lastly, a 2014 detailed analysis in CMAJ Open clarified much about what these cases of hastening death without explicit request entail. I quote our conclusion here: "Most of the cases we studied did not fit the label of "nonvoluntary life-ending" for at least one of the following reasons: the drugs were administered with a focus on symptom control; a hastened death was highly unlikely; or the act was taken in accordance with the patient's previously expressed wishes. Thus, we recommend a more nuanced view of life-ending acts without explicit patient request in the debate on physician-assisted dying."
 
This is not to condone or excuse physicians who engage in such practices, but it is important to know and be clear about what we are focusing our societal discussions on.
 
The question then is, why did the authors of the video overlook these clear conclusions during their extensive review of the evidence? It is very difficult to see how our research could be misrepresented in the way it has been in the video. The research is very clear and it does not support the claims made in the video. I urge anyone relying on the large body of peer-reviewed evidence to analyse it carefully, and if necessary consult with the authors, before communicating to the general public.

Assistant Professor Kenneth Chambaere
End of Life Care Research Group
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Belgium


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The Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney has released a grotesque and appalling video that blatantly misrepresents Belgium's non-voluntary euthanasia practices as being 'caused' by their voluntary assisted dying law. They're not.

 

Read a more detailed report here.

 

Video narrative

“Belgian scholars have researched the country's non-voluntary euthanasia rate (or NVE) over a number of years.

Their findings unambiguously show that Belgium's NVE rate was much higher BEFORE it legalised voluntary assisted dying (or VAD), and dropped significantly afterwards.

Yet the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney has released a grotesque video which cherry-picks just the 2007 figure to claim that Belgium's VAD law has caused its NVE practices.

But the NVE drop is no secret: it's expressly stated in the very research the Church cites.

It's no wonder that lead researcher, Assistant Professor Kenneth Chambaere, called the Church’s video “cherry-picked", “a blatant misrepresentation”, “scaremongering” and “appalling”.

The video casts serious doubts over the Church's competence in assessing scholarly evidence, and calls into question its desire to avoid misinformation.

To conclude, Belgium's NVE rate dropped dramatically, and has remained lower, after it legalised voluntary assisted dying.”

 

Visit the YouTube page.

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Palliative care specialist advances incoherent reasons to oppose VAD.

Director of Palliative Care at Cabrini Health, Associate Professor Natasha Michael, yesterday published an opinion piece in The Age newspaper. In it, she rails against Victoria’s voluntary assisted dying (VAD) Act which comes into effect on 19th June. Instead she articulates an arrogant and prescriptive view of what Australians should and shouldn’t be allowed, consistent with Catholic dogma, as I uncover.

Michael, along with fellow devout Catholic Dr Stephen Parnis, ‘tirelessly’ opposed the introduction of Victoria’s VAD law. They continue to actively oppose it, and her opinion piece reveals her spurious ‘reasoning’.

The Catholic Healthcare brick wall

More than half of all palliative care services in Australia are delivered through Catholic institutions, of which Cabrini Health is one arm. These institutions have determined that VAD will not be available in any of their facilities or via any of their services, even if the individual patient and doctor are supportive.

This arbitrarily limits access to lawful choice by citizens.

Confected ‘institutional conscience’

I say ‘arbitrarily’ because ‘institutional conscience’ is a confection: it doesn’t really exist. Only real persons have conscience. The fabricated dictates of any institution — presented as ‘moral rules’ — extinguish the actual real conscience of those who exist within it: at least, those whose conscience differs.

The upshot is that a specific cohort of religious, celibate men in Rome dictate whether Australian citizens can or can’t obtain lawful healthcare services from half the service providers.

So let’s examine what the institutional ‘conscience’ has to say.

Disgraceful framing in headline

We can’t let voluntary assisted dying negate our commitment to the ill”, Michael’s article headline screams.

Firstly, VAD is not available to the “ill”. It’s available only to those with terminal illness and intolerable suffering, according to 68 criteria.

Secondly, Michael invokes a false dichotomy of “negating a commitment”. VAD does not “negate a commitment”. Indeed, to fail to hear and respect a persistent, fully informed and tested request for VAD that meets all the criteria is to negate palliative care’s commitment to honour the patient’s deeply held values, beliefs and decisions.

Medical-coloured glasses

The introduction of voluntary assisted dying legislation in Victoria on June 19 will remind us of the occasional failure of medicine,” Michael says.

That’s it. The patient’s death is a failure of medicine, as though a person’s death is a medical event rather than a deeply human and private one of personhood.

It also flags the common but immature medical assumption that “death = failure”. Death is inevitable, not a “failure”. The key question about death for people with terminal illness is “how”, and Michael presumes to prescribe the “how”: being receptacles for interventions that she and her colleagues provide.

Let’s be clear. Many people are helped enormously by palliative care. That’s a great credit to the discipline’s specialists.

However, as Palliative Care Australia acknowledges, even the best palliative care can’t relieve all excruciating, debilitating and humiliating refractory symptoms.

Michael’s answer to this sometimes “failure” of medical interventions? Deliver more interventions, whether the patient considers them consistent with his own values, beliefs and circumstances or not.

They’re very heavily medical-coloured glasses indeed.

Three faux ‘threats’

Michael then invokes three faux ‘threats’ supposedly caused by lawful VAD in Victoria.

Faux threat 1: “Validating suicide as an acceptable choice”.

Michael exposes her own bias here: that all self-hastening of deaths are the same — that there is no meaningful difference between a dying person who is fully informed and whose rational choice for a peaceful assisted death has been extensively tested, with the violent and impulsive action of a person suffering a temporary, resolvable personal crisis, be it mental illness, substance abuse, intimate relationship breakdown or other circumstance.

Michael is pretty much on her own here. Most Australian doctors make a clear distinction between these very different contexts.

Faux threat 2: “accepting substandard medical care by supporting the lack of rigour in defining [VAD] eligibility”.

Michael overlooks that there is a major lack of rigour in existing, lawful end-of-life choices.

There are no statutory requirements for a patient to refuse medical treatment, even if the treatment would be life-saving.

There are no statutory requirements for the voluntary refusal of food and fluids in order to die, either.

More critically, despite terminal sedation being a common end-of-life medical practice but ethically problematic (including that it may hasten death and may not alleviate intractable symptoms), not only is there no statutory requirement for its practice, but neither the Australian Medical Association nor Palliative Care Australia have official guidelines on its practice.

Thus, in railing against the staggering 68 standards of practice prescribed in Victoria’s VAD law — vastly more than any other in the world — as a “lack of rigour”, Michael makes no mention of three other major life-end choices that have no such standards, including her own discipline’s terminal sedation.

Doctor, heal thyself (and thine own systems).

Faux threat 3: “introducing into the healthcare curriculum the intentional ending of life as acceptable medical treatment”

Michael creates a misleading impression here. By referring to ‘curriculum’ you might think that all medical students would have to undergo training on how to end lives, or be ‘indoctrinated’ to accept VAD. That is not true.

To be able to prescribe lethal medication under Victoria’s legislation, the doctor must undergo additional training in relation to that procedure. Doctors will only receive the training if they self-nominate for it: it’s not compulsory.

If, by ‘curriculum’ Michael means only “VAD might be discussed” in medical school, then she would have to articulate why termination of pregnancy (to which the Catholic church objects) should not be discussed, either. Nor the transfusion of blood, since many Jehovah’s Witnesses object to the procedure.

Own failure in palliative care principles

Nowhere in her opinion piece does Michael acknowledge that the patient may deeply hold values and beliefs that validly favour VAD. Thus, Michael offends the first principle of palliative care which is to make the patient the centre of care and to honour as much as possible the patient’s values, beliefs, attitudes and wishes.

Indeed, in her conclusion, Michael states that palliative care “remains committed to the ongoing accompaniment of our patients. Not abandoning them” and which is “the only plausible method of compassion and care.”

This surely is the most egregious and arrogant self-interest of all: patients must subject themselves to being accompanied by palliative care staff and their ‘interventions’ whether they want more or not.

On the contrary, to fail to hear and respect a genuine, informed and persistent request for a peaceful hastened death from a dying patient for whom this accords most firmly with his deeply held values and beliefs, is to abandon the patient.

Conclusion

Michael is of course entitled to her personal stance, and I celebrate her right to hold her views: for herself.

However, her ‘requirement’ that all Victorians be denied access to an option that four out of five believe to be moral — and instead subject themselves to interventions administered by Michael and her colleagues — reveals an unattractive arrogance.

It’s a shame that Catholic bioethics doesn’t teach more about reflection, especially as to whether one’s own beliefs ought to dictate and limit the choices of others with equally firmly held, though different, values.

In the meantime, Victorians are pawns to the tyranny of the Vatican as to whether there is a local healthcare facility that will hear and examine their request for a peaceful, assisted death in the face of terminal illness.

In many places, there won’t be.


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Terminal sedation is not an argument against assisted dying law reform.

Opponents of assisted dying often claim that the appropriate response to refractory symptoms at end of life is terminal sedation — also known as palliative sedation or continuous deep sedation.e.g. 1 Terminal sedation is the administration of sedatives so as to render the patient unconscious until death. Thus, the patient’s active experience of suffering is removed, even if the underlying causes of the suffering are not.

Terminal sedation can help in some cases of end-of-life suffering, but it remains a problematic practice — and not a substitute for lawful assisted dying — for eight broad reasons.

1. Directly and foreseeably causing death

Unless the patient is already likely to die of her illness within a few days, it is the withholding of artificial nutrition and hydration during terminal sedation that causes the patient’s death. Lack of fluids causes circulatory collapse and organ failure within 14 days; less if the patient is frail.

In addition, at least one study has found that the terminal sedation medication itself can cause depression of respiration and/or circulation, directly resulting in death in 3.9% of cases.2 Another study purporting to show no survival difference in patients given terminal sedation3 has been exposed as deeply scientifically flawed.4

While opponents of assisted dying usually claim that the intention of terminal sedation is the relief of symptoms and not the hastening of death (their fundamental objection to assisted dying), in practice, terminal sedation can directly and foreseeably cause death.

2. Inapplicable prior to 2–14 days before death

A standard of practice in terminal sedation in many jurisdictions is that it should be used to address refractory symptoms only if the patient’s death is anticipated within hours or days, and in any case less than 14 days.5

However, intolerable and intractable symptoms often occur much earlier, for example amongst those with metastatic cancer where death is still weeks off, or those with a progressive degenerative neurological condition such as motor neuron disease, who may have several months to live.

Thus, terminal sedation is not a practical solution to intractable symptoms in many cases.

3. It doesn’t always help

Palliative Care Australia’s acknowledgement that even best practice can’t always alleviate intolerable suffering at end of life6 is confirmed by a study into terminal sedation practice which found that, in contrast to popular belief that it alleviates (the patients’ conscious awareness of) all suffering, it was ineffective in 17% of cases.7

4. It may violate the patient’s value system

Most calls for terminal sedation as “the answer” to assisted dying law reform focus on the views of the doctor, for whom this is another familiar “intervention”. However, terminal sedation may be unacceptable to the patient.

A patient may deeply believe that being forced to dehydrate to death — unconscious in a bed for a couple of weeks — to be an anathema to her most deeply-held values and sense of self as an active participant in her own life trajectory. This patient may profoundly prefer another route whose equally caused and foreseeable consequence is death: voluntary assisted dying, an option that gives her the chance to say goodbye to loved ones at a time of her own choosing.

5. It extinguishes the patient’s decisional capacity

Rendering the patient unconscious extinguishes her decision-making capacity. The patient can no longer participate in her own treatment decisions unless terminal sedation is ceased, she regains consciousness and becomes aware of her intolerable suffering once more.

6. Doctors’ intention not always clear-cut

When a doctor administers terminal sedation to a patient, the doctor’s intention is not always clear-cut. The doctor may intend to alleviate the patient’s suffering and/or intend to hasten death.

The administration of a single large bolus of sedatives is generally indicative of an intention to hasten death, in which case the doctor in likely to be investigated and prosecuted. However, the administration of increasing doses of sedatives is less clear: significantly increasing titrations of sedatives may be necessary to alleviate intractable symptoms, or they may be an intention to hasten death.

7. Risk of coercion

There is a conceptual risk that greedy relatives, service providers who need the patient’s bed, and others, might inappropriately persuade the patient to opt for a death hastened by terminal sedation, a similar theoretical risk to that in assisted dying.

However, unlike assisted dying which under statutory law is an express, fully informed, independently examined and documented desire and intention to hasten death, there are no statutory requirements in Australia regarding testing of desire, informedness, intention or possible coercion in terminal sedation. This is incoherent.

8. Worse experiences for the bereaved

Studies have found a significant minority of relatives of patients receiving terminal sedation are quite distressed by the experience. Problems causing distress include concern about the patient’s welfare and terminal sedation’s failure to address symptoms, burden of responsibility for making the decision, feeling unprepared for changes in the patient’s condition, short time to the patient’s death and whether terminal sedation had contributed to it, feeling that healthcare workers were insufficiently compassionate, and wondering if another approach would have been better.e.g. 8,9 Periods of longer terminal sedation may be more distressing than shorter periods.10

In contrast, an Oregon study found that the bereaved from assisted deaths appreciate the opportunity to say goodbye, to know that the choice was the deceased’s wish, that the deceased avoided prolonged suffering, that the choice was legal, and they were able to plan and prepare for the death.11

Another Oregon study found that the mental health outcomes of bereaved from assisted deaths were no different from the bereaved from natural deaths.12 Bereaved from assisted deaths were more likely to believe that the dying person’s wishes had been honoured and were less likely to have regrets about the death.

A Swiss study found the rate of complicated grief after assisted death was comparable to the general Swiss population,13[^] while a Dutch study found bereavement coping in cancer was better after assisted death than after non-assisted death.14

Incoherent professional association standards

Neither the Australian Medical Association nor Palliative Care Australia have guidelines for doctors for the practice of terminal sedation.[*] Indeed, even Palliative Care Australia’s carefully reviewed and updated national standards released in late 2018 don’t mention sedation at all.15

In contrast, in countries where assisted dying is now lawful, clear and specific frameworks have been developed to guide the practice of terminal sedation: in the Netherlands,16 Canada,17 and Belgium.18 This deliberative development and implementation points to continued improvement in (not deterioration of) professional medical practice across the board when assisted dying is legal.

Given the profound issues in terminal sedation as in voluntary assisted dying, the failure of the peak Australian medical associations to publish guidelines on terminal sedation, while opposing assisted dying for perceived issues in its implementation, is incoherent and indefensible.

Summary

Palliative and medical care can never address all profound suffering at the end of life, regardless of funding or organisation: some kinds of suffering have no relevant or effective medical interventions, and even terminal sedation may be inapplicable or ineffective. To claim that palliative care is always the answer is a “monstrous arrogance19 and “represents the last vestiges of [medical] paternalism”.20

 

"It is clear that improving palliative care will not remove the need for legalizing assisted dying, and that legalizing assisted dying need not harm palliative care.”21

 

While terminal (palliative) sedation may help a minority of patients, it's a problematic practice that is often not a practical solution to refractory symptoms at end of life.

Terminal sedation is not a substitute for lawful assisted dying choice.


[^]     Slightly elevated levels of PTSD were found amongst the bereaved (compared to the general population), but it was not established whether this would have been different from the trauma of experiencing continued suffering and deterioration or different from PTSD rates of those who had recently lost a loved one by any other means, including terminal sedation.

[*]     Revealed through direct correspondence between myself and the two associations.

 

References

  1. Somerville, M 2009, 'We can always relieve pain', Ottawa Citizen, (24 Jul).
  2. Morita, T, Chinone, Y, Ikenaga, M, Miyoshi, M, Nakaho, T, Nishitateno, K, Sakonji, M, Shima, Y, Suenaga, K, Takigawa, C, Kohara, H, Tani, K, Kawamura, Y, Matsubara, T, Watanabe, A, Yagi, Y, Sasaki, T, Higuchi, A, Kimura, H, Abo, H, Ozawa, T, Kizawa, Y, Uchitomi, Y, Japan Pain, PMR & Psycho-Oncology Study, G 2005, 'Efficacy and safety of palliative sedation therapy: a multicenter, prospective, observational study conducted on specialized palliative care units in Japan', J Pain Symptom Manage, 30(4), pp. 320-8.
  3. Maltoni, M, Pittureri, C, Scarpi, E, Piccinini, L, Martini, F, Turci, P, Montanari, L, Nanni, O & Amadori, D 2009, 'Palliative sedation therapy does not hasten death: results from a prospective multicenter study', Ann Oncol, 20(7), pp. 1163-9.
  4. Francis, N 2016, How bad research fuels dodgy claims, DyingForChoice.com, viewed 11 Mar 2016, http://www.dyingforchoice.com/f-files/how-bad-research-fuels-dodgy-claims.
  5. Twycross, R 2019, 'Reflections on palliative sedation', Palliative care, 12, pp. 1-16.
  6. Palliative Care Australia 2006, Policy statement on voluntary euthanasia, Canberra, pp. 2.
  7. Davis, MP 2009, 'Does palliative sedation always relieve symptoms?', Journal of Palliative Medicine, 12(10), pp. 875-877.
  8. Morita, T, Ikenaga, M, Adachi, I, Narabayashi, I, Kizawa, Y, Honke, Y, Kohara, H, Mukaiyama, T, Akechi, T & Uchitomi, Y 2004, 'Family experience with palliative sedation therapy for terminally ill cancer patients', Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 28(6), pp. 557-565.
  9. Bruinsma, SM, Brown, J, van der Heide, A, Deliens, L, Anquinet, L, Payne, SA, Seymour, JE, Rietjens, JAC & on behalf of, U 2014, 'Making sense of continuous sedation in end-of-life care for cancer patients: an interview study with bereaved relatives in three European countries', Supportive Care in Cancer, 22(12), pp. 3243-3252.
  10. van Dooren, S, van Veluw, HT, van Zuylen, L, Rietjens, JA, Passchier, J & van der Rijt, CC 2009, 'Exploration of concerns of relatives during continuous palliative sedation of their family members with cancer', J Pain Symptom Manage, 38(3), pp. 452-459.
  11. Srinivasan, EG 2009, Bereavement experiences following a death under Oregon's Death With Dignity Act, Human Development and Family Studies, Oregon State University, pp. 127.
  12. Ganzini, L, Goy, ER, Dobscha, SK & Prigerson, H 2009, 'Mental health outcomes of family members of Oregonians who request physician aid in dying', J Pain Symptom Manage, 38(6), pp. 807-15.
  13. Wagner, B, Müller, J & Maercker, A 2012, 'Death by request in Switzerland: Posttraumatic stress disorder and complicated grief after witnessing assisted suicide', European Psychiatry, 27(7), pp. 542-546.
  14. Swarte, NB, van der Lee, ML, van der Bom, JG, van den Bout, J & Heintz, AP 2003, 'Effects of euthanasia on the bereaved family and friends: a cross sectional study', British Medical Journal, 327(7408), pp. 189-192.
  15. Palliative Care Australia 2018, National Palliative Care Standards, Griffith ACT, pp. 44.
  16. Verkerk, M, van Wijlick, E, Legemaate, J & de Graeff, A 2007, 'A national guideline for palliative sedation in the Netherlands', J Pain Symptom Manage, 34(6), pp. 666-70.
  17. Dean, MM, Cellarius, V, Henry, B, Oneschuk, D & Librach, LS 2012, 'Framework for continuous palliative sedation therapy in Canada', J Palliat Med, 15(8), pp. 870-9.
  18. Broeckaert, B, Mullie, A, Gielen, J, Desmet, M, Declerck, D, Vanden Berghe, P & FPZV Ethics Steering Group 2012, Palliative sedation guidelines, Federatie Palliatieve Zorg Vlaanderen, viewed 18 Sep 2015, http://www.pallialine.be/template.asp?f=rl_palliatieve_sedatie.htm.
  19. Hain, RDW 2014, 'Euthanasia: 10 myths', Archives of Disease in Childhood, 99(9), pp. 798-799.
  20. Horne, DC 2014, 'Re: Why the Assisted Dying Bill should become law in England and Wales', BMJ, 349, p. g4349/rr/759847.
  21. Downar, J, Boisvert, M & Smith, D 2014, 'Re: Why the Assisted Dying Bill should become law in England and Wales [response]', BMJ, 349, p. g4349/rr/760260.
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'HOPE' is pedalling assisted dying misinformation to politicians again.

The Catholic-backed anti-assisted-dying ginger group, HOPE, was represented for years by Paul Russell. He's retired and Branka van der Linden is now at the helm. But its penchant for pedaling egregious misinformation hasn't changed. Van der Linden recently sent an email to all WA members of parliament, containing three points.

Van der Linden's email reads:

 

Dear [MP salutation],

Did you know that the WA majority report that recommended assisted suicide for WA either dismissed or failed to report on the following statistics?

  • In the Netherlands in 2015, 431 people were euthanised without their explicit consent.
  • In Belgium, 8 per cent of all deaths were without explicit consent from the patient.
  • In Oregon in 2017, the ingestion status of 44 (out of 218) patients was ‘unknown’, making it impossible to ascertain if these 44 patients ended their lives voluntarily and without coercion.

Yours faithfully,

Branka van der Linden

Director, HOPE

 

The trouble is, all three claims by van der Linden are either directly false or egregiously misleading. Here are the actual facts:

FACT: Peer-reviewed scientific research shows that the non-voluntary euthanasia rate of both the Netherlands and Belgium has dropped significantly since their assisted dying Acts came into effect in 2002, consistent with more careful end-of-life decision making across the board.

Fiction 1: van der Linden improperly cherry-picked a single year’s statistic for each country (and, incoherently, a raw count for one but a percentage for the other), implying that lawful voluntary euthanasia increases non-voluntary euthanasia, when the opposite is true.

Fiction 2: van der Linden claimed Belgium’s non-voluntary euthanasia rate is 8%. It has never been anywhere near that figure: the most recent figure is 1.7% and it was 3.2% before Belgium’s euthanasia law.

FACT: Oregon’s health department actively matches death certificates with prescriptions issued for assisted dying. At any time some prescriptions have not been taken and the person may still be alive, and for the deceased, death certificates are still being processed. This naturally means that some prescription/death statuses will temporarily be ‘unknown’ to authorities, even though they will be later determined.

Fiction 3: van der Linden comically implies that this proper process is sinister.

It's curious how 'HOPE' likes to repeatedly demonstrate how HOPElessly uninformed it is about the actual facts and that its methods include cherry-picking data which it thinks supports its anti-assisted dying case, but which don't.

Western Australians deserve better than HOPE's silly propaganda campaign.


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A forensic analysis exposes Theo Boer's smoke and mirrors on 'suicide contagion'

In my most recent article in the Journal of Assisted Dying, I forensically analyse Dutch ethicist Professor Theo Boer’s 2017 paper purporting to find suicide contagion from assisted dying in the Netherlands. It doesn’t go well for Professor Boer, to put it mildly. You can find the full article here.

I also find an astonishing coincidence that occurred in 2014, the year Boer went feral against the Dutch euthanasia law.

Multiple fatal flaws

In the ‘analysis’ outlined in his article, Boer commits a number of fatal scientific no-noes, including failing to analyse the variable he actually surmised might cause suicide contagion, cherry-picking data that supported his conclusion while ignoring or offhandedly dismissing data at odds with his conclusion, and wrongly forming a causative conclusion from a simple correlation while failing to control for any confounding variables of which there are many.

A litany of scientific offences

In addition to the fatal flaws, Boer’s article contains numerous other scientific and academic offences. My forensic analysis concludes:

“In summary, Boer’s article contains a litany of scientific and scholarly failures. Its speculations are ill-informed, poorly-assembled, incoherent in places and mostly uncited, the data cherry-picked and invalidly interpreted, and the laissez faire methodology incapable of validly supporting its conclusion.
 

Boer conjures up mere smoke and mirrors to argue suicide contagion from VAD in the Netherlands. The article should be retracted.”

The article also reflects badly on the journal that published this smoke and mirrors: the Journal of Ethics in Mental Health. Neither peer review nor editorial effort identified or attempted to correct any of the nonsense in the article.

What was he thinking?

Professor Boer is an expert in Reformist Protestant theology. As a religious ethicist, it’s astonishing that he considered himself suited to conducting and publishing a ‘causative’ scientific study.

In his article, Boer proposed VAD as the only factor to contribute to changes in the Netherlands’ general suicide rate (and dismissed the Belgian data which contradicted his theory).

In reality, numerous risk and protective factors affect the suicide rate, and in the Netherlands as I’ve established using their official government data, just one factor — unemployment — explains 80% of the variance in the Dutch suicide rate since 1960. Boer casually dismisses this without providing the faintest fume of an empirical analysis himself.

Boer’s article did little but amply demonstrate his underlying anchoring and confirmation bias on the subject, his unfamiliarity with the complexity of suicide, and ignorance of proper scientific principles.

For good measure, he casually threw in a comment about “suicide contagion” or copycat suicides, without understanding that in suicide, copying is the method of causing death. But by definition, general suiciders don’t follow the provisions of the euthanasia Act.

His endeavour made as little sense as me writing a conclusive article about Reformist Protestant theology, about which I know very little.

A copycat analysis?

Coincidentally, the structure of the storyline, the litany of scientific offences committed, and the conclusions reached in Boer’s article were surprisingly similar to those in an ‘analysis’ of Oregon’s suicide rate in another paper by Jones and Paton. Like Boer, Jones and Paton start out by surmising that assisted dying ought to lower the general suicide rate, and conclude the opposite.

Boer approvingly cites the Jones and Paton article, even though a forensic analysis found no fewer than ten major scientific flaws in it and provided multiple sources of empirical evidence at odds with the article’s conclusions.

But Boer manages to cock even the citation up, referring to the article’s authors as Holmes and Paton.

Will the real Theo Boer please stand up?

Boer notes that he’s always been a euthanasia sceptic. Nevertheless, as a Reformist Protestant, he had long accepted assisted dying in “emergency” situations, of which intolerable and otherwise unrelievable suffering is a ‘qualifying’ criterion, and which is the substance of the Dutch euthanasia law (it’s regarded in legal circles as a law of “necessity”). He also opined that the Dutch model was a decent one that other jurisdictions could emulate.

Boer served as the ethicist member of one of the five Dutch euthanasia review commissions, examining every case reported to it between 2005 and 2014.

In 2014 he publicly quit his post on the review committee, slamming the Dutch assisted dying system. He’s been badmouthing it to anyone who will listen, since.

In preparation for this analysis, I asked Boer if his vocal opposition to the Dutch assisted dying model was now based on an in-principle opposition to assisted dying, or only in regard to more recent practice under the Dutch euthanasia Act. Despite a couple of iterations, I didn’t get a specific answer.

The law hasn’t changed

Here’s the point. While Boer repeatedly opines that things changed radically in the Netherlands around 2007, the country’s euthanasia Act hasn’t changed since it was passed in 2001 (and came into effect in 2002). Not. One. Word.

In addition, the Dutch Supreme Court determined in 1994 that individuals with mental (in the absence of concomitant physical) illness could qualify under the then regulatory euthanasia framework, and it was found that cases occurred every year.

And the 2001 Act formalised in statute the regulatory framework that had existed since at least 1984, when the Dutch medical association first published guidelines for euthanasia.

Thus, the Act reflects very long-standing practice, and it hasn’t changed since it was enacted, in contrast to Boer’s claim that things have radically changed.

Flimsy and incoherent ‘ethics’ part 1

This brings us to the first fatal incoherence of Boer’s “ethics”: that he now opposes the law because people with psychiatric illness and other conditions are, in slightly increasing numbers, availing themselves of the euthanasia law. It is these cases against which Boer rails, despite having previously said the Dutch model is a good example for the world, and having actively participated in the system.

Boer’s flip flop is to argue that a law that permits assisted dying under a range of medical conditions (and has done so for decades) is a good law, provided some of those who might qualify (like psychiatric cases) never use it.

Try and explain the ethics behind that position.

Flimsy and incoherent ‘ethics’ part 2

The second fatal incoherence of Boer’s ‘ethics’ is his repeated complaint that until around 2007, the numbers of euthanasia cases was “somewhat steady”, but increased after that. Never mind that the majority of the increase was still in relation to terminal cancer: Boer simply railed at the increased numbers as a major problem.

But, try and explain using ethical principles, why it is appropriate for 2,000 people a year to avail themselves of the euthanasia law, but inappropriate for 4,000 (who all qualify)?

Indeed, the Dutch euthanasia Act makes no mention of numbers: there is no legislated limit on the count of people who might choose to use the law. Rather, it is based on due care criteria, outlining the circumstances of who may qualify, and the process by which they may.

The legislature’s intent remains unchanged and is still being adhered to, though more people, the majority of whom have terminal cancer, are using the law.

It’s astonishing that a Professor of Ethics fails to reflect on the fatal incoherence of his own ‘ethical’ arguments.

What happened?

Boer, who had supported and promoted the Dutch euthanasia model suddenly and incoherently changed his position to vocally opposed in 2014. What happened?

One factor might shed some light. In 2014, Boer was appointed to the endowed professorship of Lindeboom Chair in Ethics in Healthcare at Kampen Theological University.

While Kampen Theological University is a Dutch Reformist Protestant institution and therefore may support assisted dying in “emergency” cases, the Lindeboom Institute, which endows Boer’s eponymous professorship, is less understanding.

The Lindeboom Institute was co-founded by several orthodox Christian institutions and cooperates with the Netherlands Evangelical University which studies science from an creationist Biblical perspective.

The Institute demands “biblically sound medical ethics” along with “Christian norms and values”. You’d be left wondering what that actually means, until you find on its website that the Board’s role is “the protection of people at all stages of life”.

In addition, participating organisations that fund the Lindeboom endowment, like the Dutch Patients Association, Pro Life Health Insurance and the Foundation for Christian Philosophy, are strongly opposed to assisted dying in any form.

It turns out that the authors of that other ‘analysis’ that commits numerous similar scientific offences which generate smoke and mirrors, Jones and Paton, are devout conservative Catholics.

Gosh. What a coincidence.


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Netherlands 'suicide contagion' from assisted dying: Theo Boer's smoke and mirrors


Author(s)

Neil Francis

Journal

Journal of Assisted Dying, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1–11.

Abstract

Background: Concerns had been raised about the scientific quality of a 2017 article by ethicist Theo Boer in which he theorised that lawful voluntary assisted dying (VAD) would potentially ‘dampen’ suicide rates, but drew the opposite conclusion: the suggestion that VAD cases have caused higher suicide rates.
Methods: A structured, forensic examination of the article was conducted.
Results: Numerous serious shortcomings were found, including (a) profound unfamiliarity with the complexity of suicide; (b) lack of a clear and specific pre-hoc methodology; (c) numerous unsupported speculations; (d) cherry-picked data and casual dismissal of data at odds with the conclusion; (e) a simple correlation interpreted as causation while failing to control for any confounding factors; (f) incoherent, contradictory and misleading statements; and (g) multiple editorial errors.
Conclusions: Boer’s article is poorly conceived and carelessly assembled, revealing unfamiliarity with both the subject matter and with scientific principles. The conclusions drawn are not supported by the article’s methodology or data. The article offers mere smoke and mirrors to conclude that VAD may increase suicide rates, at odds with wider evidence.

Article keywords

voluntary assisted dying, euthanasia, suicide contagion, Werther effect, Netherlands, methodology

Full PDF

Download the full PDF: Download the full article (5.4Mb)

Citation

Francis, N 2019, 'Netherlands "suicide contagion" from assisted dying: Theo Boer's smoke and mirrors', Journal of Assisted Dying, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1-11.

Download the citation in RIS format: RIS.gif


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Margaret Somerville's latest and repeated misinformation deserves censure.

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.

The authority bias

Somerville shows herself to again to not care much for the full facts. She seems more comfortable with calling on the ‘authority bias’: advancing her credentials as a “Professor of Bioethics” along with nine “international counterparts” in the authorship of said paper.

I’ll spare you a blow-by-blow analysis of how the JPC article skilfully employs reassuringly professional tones to stake a wholly one-sided and shockingly ill-informed stance against assisted dying law reform.

A very telling example of misinformation

Let’s look at just one very telling example: the statistics that the authors quote about non-voluntary euthanasia (NVE) rates in Belgium and the Netherlands. NVE is a doctor’s act of hastening a patient’s death without a current request from the patient. The authors say that:

“Administration of lethal drugs without patient request occurred in 1.7% of all deaths in the Flanders region of Belgium alone and 0.2% of all deaths in the Netherlands.”

Are these figures correct? Yes indeed they are... as at the date of the cited sources. However, they are just cherry-picked tidbits from a larger and very different smorgasboard of evidence.

A throbbing great falsehood with warts

Do the figures mean what the authors say they mean? In no uncertain terms, absolutely and incontrovertibly not.

The authors don’t just coyly suggest, imply or impute that those NVE rates are caused by the legalisation of assisted dying, they directly claim it. Right in front the statistics, they state categorically that:

“Allowing voluntary euthanasia has led to non-voluntary euthanasia.”

Let’s put this the politest way we can: that’s a throbbing great falsehood with warts on it. The authors would have known this if they’d paid attention to published research facts beyond their own opinions.

Comprehensively ignoring peer-reviewed facts

Had the paper’s authors (and the supposed peer reviewers) actually known much about the subject matter, they wouldn’t have referred to those figures, because they’re massively unhelpful to the case the authors attempt to prosecute. Here are three central published facts about the case:

Fact 1: Before the Netherlands’ euthanasia Act came into effect, the NVE rate was 0.7%. Then in the next research round with the Act in place it had dropped to 0.5%, and the round after that, to 0.2%. The last is the figure the authors quote as evidence that “VE leads to NVE”, despite the fact that the rate had massively dropped, not risen.

Fact 2: Before Belgium’s euthanasia Act came into effect, the NVE rate was 3.2% [typo 3.5% corrected]. Then in the next research round with the Act in place it had dropped to 1.7%, the figure the authors quote. Again, the rate had massively dropped, not risen.

Fact 3: The rate of NVE in the United Kingdom was researched around the same time as the later Dutch figures, and found to be 0.3%.2 The UK has never had an assisted dying law, so the 0.3% NVE rate, which is higher than the Dutch 0.2% rate the authors quote, can't have been caused by one.

So, these three key published facts — known to most of us with an interest in lawful assisted dying — squarely contradict the authors' VE-causing-NVE claim. It's at the very least astonishing and inexcusable that all the numerous authors and peer reviewers of this “scholarly” article either didn’t know, or “overlooked”, them.

Indeed, despite holding one of the world’s largest scholarly libraries on published assisted dying research, I know of no study that establishes a VE-to-NVE link. All the evidence is contrary.

Not the first time

We could perhaps be a little forgiving if the authors just got a statistic wrong. After all, we're all human. But there are ten authors, plus peer reviewers. And there’s the egregious offence the authors committed in making an unequivocal but false claim about the data. Did none of them know what they were talking about or bother to check?

In this case I’m wholly unforgiving. That's because I’ve called Somerville out multiple times before for misrepresenting data, including for misrepresenting Belgian and Dutch NVE data precisely as she does again in this JPC article. We’ve even publicly exchanged words about it via the ABC’s Religion and Ethics portal. It’s not like she simply didn’t know.

I’ve also called Somerville out for wrongly claiming that Dutch Minister of Health Dr Els Borst regretted the euthanasia law; and wrongly claiming the Dutch elderly go to German hospitals and nursing homes for healthcare for fear of being euthanased in the Netherlands, including that NVE actually does occur in German nursing homes, despite, as Somerville notes, “their strict prohibition on euthanasia”.

This rubbish deserves censure and ridicule

While I argue strongly that different views about assisted dying law reform are welcome in a robust democracy, repeatedly spreading such egregious misinformation about assisted dying is an embarrassment to and unworthy of scholarly attribution to professorship. Such rubbish deserves to be rejected, censured and ridiculed.

 

References

  1. Sprung, CL, Somerville, MA, Radbruch, L, Collet, NS, Duttge, G, Piva, JP, Antonelli, M, Sulmasy, DP, Lemmens, W & Ely, EW 2018, 'Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia: Emerging issues from a global perspective', Journal of Palliative Care.
  2. Seale, C 2009, 'End-of-life decisions in the UK involving medical practitioners', Palliat Med, 23(3), pp. 198-204.

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