SAPOL supports euthanasia law reform under strict guidelines

There are new calls for euthanasia laws in South Australia as police reveal a significant number of suicides involve terminally-ill people.

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South Australia Police support strict euthanasia law reform, saying more than one in 10 suicides involve terminally ill people.

Assistant Commissioner Scott Duval said SA Police supported law changes that would, under certain, prescribed conditions, allow South Australians to die with dignity under proper medical supervision.

His backing for legal reform was made on behalf of SA Police in a submission to State Parliament’s End of Life Choices Committee, which is due to hear more evidence in coming weeks. Mr Duval, pictured, said 10 South Australians who were terminally ill took their own lives from January 1 to June 30 last year. He said their deaths accounted for about 11 per cent of the 90 investigated suicides for that period, in addition to a further seven people aged from 71 to 91 who took their own lives due to age.

“Many deaths in those circumstances are undignified, violent and often committed in isolation, which on occasion results in the death not becoming known to others for some time,” Mr Duval said in the submission. “There may also be a degree of pain suffered.”

He said it was not uncommon for people to commit suicide as a consequence of loneliness and old age.

The SA Police submission said 238 people suicided in 2018/19, an increase from 203 the previous year. It is an offence under SA law to assist in a suicide or a suicide attempt.

The End of Life Choices joint committee was set up to report on the laws required to enable assisted suicide in SA and investigate how end of life was currently managed for the chronically and terminally ill across the state.

The committee will prepare a report for Parliament once hearings end in coming weeks.

Proposed legislation, expected to be modelled on laws introduced in Victoria in June last year and Western Australia in December, is likely to reach Parliament for debate by the end of this year.

In Victoria, 52 of the 81 people with permits for self or practitioner-administered lethal medication ended their lives between June 19 and December 31 last year.

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