Our euthanasia laws can be made better

With MPs clashing over the bill for more than 100 hours in 2017, it could be argued that the state’s assisted dying laws were the most contentious laws to ever be debated in the Victorian parliament. After the Northern Territory’s euthanasia laws were revoked after two years by the federal government in 1997, Victoria was the first state to make assisted dying legal.

The contested beginnings go a long way to explaining why the legislation contains 68 safeguards, requires multiple approvals and is considered to be among the most conservative such legislation in the world. In principle, it allows for individuals over 18 who are terminally ill with a life expectancy of less than six months (12 months for those with a neurodegenerative disease), and whose condition is causing suffering they find intolerable, to seek medical aid to die.

Up to June last year, 604 people had taken their own life under Victoria’s euthanasia laws.Credit:Getty Images

But there are many hurdles that have made access challenging.

Federal laws prohibit doctors from discussing or conducting voluntary assisted dying assessments by phone or telehealth; there are no specific Medicare rebates for doctors providing assistance; you must have lived in Victoria for at least 12 months; it is illegal for a doctor to raise the issue of assisted dying with a patient; only pharmacists from The Alfred hospital can supply the required drugs across the whole state; and mostly three doctors, who have undertaken mandatory training, are required to approve a person’s request to end their life in the case of a neurodegenerative disease.

Despite the impediments, up to June last year, 604 people had taken their own life under the laws that took effect in 2019, and 291 had received a permit but chose not to go ahead, a decision many make for a range of reasons.

Victoria’s euthanasia laws will have operated for four years in June this year, triggering a requirement that Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas begin a review. There is much to consider. Since Victoria made euthanasia legal, every other state has enacted its own euthanasia laws and, late last year, the federal government finally passed legislation that revokes the national government’s ability to overrule the territories if they enact their own euthanasia laws.

The Age commends the Victorian government for being an early adopter, but it has become evident that change is necessary. Reform is needed at a state and federal level that we believe can be enacted without jeopardising the guard rails necessary to ensure people’s rights are protected.

At a federal level, it is time to revise the criminal code to allow doctors to use electronic devices when communicating with those seeking to gain access to euthanasia. In a post-COVID world, to argue that meeting over Zoom should be illegal is ludicrous. Change in this regard would be of enormous benefit to those in regional areas that suffer from a shortage of trained doctors to carry out the approval process, particularly those who need a third specialist opinion.

At a state level, most other jurisdictions do not restrict medical practitioners from initiating conversations provided they give information about all options, including palliative care. That is a sensible change that should be adopted in Victoria. And with all states now having euthanasia laws, the one-year residential requirement in Victoria has become redundant.

For all the fear and loathing that was generated when the euthanasia laws were going through parliament, they have proven to be remarkably uncontroversial in practice. These are good laws that, with some pragmatic and reasonable reforms, could be improved.

Patrick Elligett sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.

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