Euthanasia law raises a dilemma

Like it or not, the rollout of voluntary euthanasia is proceeding apace. The draft bill unveiled this week by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk brings the number of Australians covered by voluntary assisted dying legislation to 17 million people — two-thirds of the national population. From the time VAD became lawful in Victoria, Jamie Walker writes in Inquirer, goalposts have shifted again and again in a line that can be traced from Victoria to Western Australia and now to Queensland. Legislation is also set to pass in South Australia. The momentum is clear. So is the need for caution and sensitivity. Respect for conscientious objection on the part of medical staff and religious-run institutions, and their traditions and life ethics, should be upheld.

Christian churches in Queensland, which operate major hospitals in the state, are facing a serious dilemma. As Walker reports in the news pages, Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge and Uniting Church in Queensland moderator Andrew Gunton say the right of institutional conscientious objection the churches had been promised is not explicit in the draft bill. As a result, they fear they could be forced to allow VAD to be administered on the premises of hospitals or aged-care homes — by visiting medicos, for example — if patients wanting it were too ill to be moved. Archbishop Coleridge says this “sleight of hand” goes to his concern that seemingly small changes from state to state add up to a major loosening of much-touted safeguards in the original Victorian bill.

The issue should be clarified in the Queensland legislation before it is voted on. The right of church-run institutions not to co-operate with VAD must be respected. Anything less would attack freedom of Christian belief and practice, which forged hospital and nursing care in the Middle Ages and is fundamental to our nation’s traditions. Churches should stand their ground. If the boundaries are clear from the start, patients wanting the option of VAD would have plenty of alternative hospital and nursing home options. As Walker writes, as we move from the introductory phase of VAD to real-life decisions, the questions will become only more acute.