Louise Roberts: Pill testing and assisted dying are threatening lives of our children

Call to allow our children to undertake pill testing at major events or have access to assisted dying laws are just not right, writes Louise Roberts.

Pregnant with my first child, a son, I was offered the best indication of how I would feel as a new mum.

If required, you will lie on that road there in front of an oncoming bus to protect him, my friend concluded as she indicated a stretch of bitumen before us.

One hundred per cent.

My first child is now 19 and that protective purpose has not wavered.

It has intensified year on year from kindy to attaching P-plates to his first car, a purpose sometimes catching me off guard in its breathtaking instinct.

So I am horrified that in the turbulent landscape of fashionable causes, we are being asked to effectively endorse two contentious issues, each with profound implications for the wellbeing and values of our youth.

Pill testing, touted as a measure of harm reduction, and assisted dying, masquerading as compassion, deliver us a moral crossroads.

Our priority in society is to protect and nurture our precious young people, particularly our teenagers. But maybe not.

The crux of the issue lies in the intrinsic vulnerability of children. They are not miniature adults capable of navigating the complexities of life and death.

There have been called for teens to undergo pill testing at major events.

And so pill testing has skulked back into the frame, this time after nine people were rushed to hospital following overdoses at a recent Melbourne music event. Seven of them were placed into an induced coma on site.

“These are very, very sick young people,” Vanessa Gorman, director of Ambulance Victoria, said at the time.

“Young people with very high temperatures, up over 41 degrees, with either rapid heart rates or irregular heart rates and actual trouble breathing and staying conscious.”

A Greens MP — this time Aiv Puglielli — grabbed the mike and demanded pill testing in the state, something the Victorian Government immediately again ruled out.

“If it saves even one young Victorian life, we know that all of it is worth it,” said Puglielli, who has previously and admirably advocated on behalf of public housing tenants, amongst other causes.

In the ongoing battle against the encroaching tide of normalising drug use, the absurdity of pill testing is a misguided beacon for those advocating a dangerously permissive approach.

Teenagers, in the throes of identity formation and beset by peer pressure, are highly susceptible to societal cues. We know this.

Pill testing, by its very nature, sends a message that experimenting with illicit substances is an acceptable norm. Surely we know this too.

Instead of fostering an environment that unequivocally rejects drug use, we encourage a culture of experimentation, potentially leading our teenagers down a perilous path with lifelong consequences.

Let’s not fool ourselves about the safety assurances that pill testing supposedly offers. The drug market is a volatile, ever-evolving beast.

New formulations and synthetic compounds pop up like whack-a-moles faster than testing methods can keep pace.

Would you want to be blissfully ignorant to the fact that a tested and therefore ‘safe’ pill, but with undetectable ingredients, might still pack a lethal punch?

Go ahead kids — dip your toes into the pool of danger, we’ll hold your hand. The argument that pill testing promotes harm reduction is as flimsy as a house of cards in a hurricane.

As mental health concerns among young people skyrocket, our responsibility is not to pat youngsters on the back as they experiment with substances.

Our children should be protected against pill testing and assisted dying laws

Meanwhile, in our nation’s capital, there’s a campaign afoot to allow children under the age of 18 to access assisted dying.

The argument is that terminally ill minors should have the right to “voluntarily end their life with dignity in the same circumstances as adults”.

The ACT Human Rights Commission says capping the scheme at the age of 18 infringes on young people’s rights to receive health care “without discrimination”.

Advocates come from a position of misplaced compassion, I believe, convinced that it grants children a so-called “dignified death”.

I do not have a child in palliative care. I cannot imagine anything worse. I have the deepest sympathy for anyone in this situation.

But this proposal confuses what it means to protect and cherish life. The belief that ending a child’s existence prematurely, under the guise of mercy, is an act of compassion.

Assisted dying for children sends a message that society is willing to accept a narrative where life is disposable, where the innocence of childhood is forfeit and where the value of human existence is subject to the capricious whims of circumstance.

Parents or guardians, who naturally hold significant sway in a teenager’s life, may inadvertently exert pressure on them to make decisions not in their best interest.

The emotionally-charged nature of dealing with a seriously ill minor adds a layer of complexity, making it challenging for the young person to exercise genuine autonomy over such life-altering choices.

The argument that children should have agency over their own lives is misguided.

We do not allow children to make decisions about their education, their healthcare or even their diet without the guidance of responsible adults.

To grant them the power to decide on matters of life and death, in pill testing or assisted dying, is a grotesque distortion of our responsibilities.