Scramble for faith protections as euthanasia bill ‘set to pass’

Tasmania appears set to legalise voluntary euthanasia, with both sides of the debate believing it will pass parliamen.

Tasmanian independent upper house MP Mike Gaggney is confident his voluntary assisted dying bill will pass his chamber next week. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Tasmania appears set to legalise voluntary euthanasia, with both sides of the debate believing it will pass parliament, as opponents scramble to secure a delay and protections for faith-based hospit­als and aged care.

Several key opponents of the “voluntary assisted dying” private member’s bill told The Australian it appeared to have sufficient support­ to pass both houses, potentially within weeks.

Its architect, independent upper-house MP Mike Gaffney, said he was “confident” his End-of-Life Choices Bill would pass in his chamber on Tuesday and was “heartened” by the response from lower-house MPs.

However, Catholic hospitals and aged-care providers, and others­ with concerns, are making urgent pleas to Premier Peter Gutwein to halt the bill, pending a full public inquiry into its merits and implications. Some want to secure protections for faith-based providers to ensure they are not legally obliged to allow VAD to occur at their facilities.

Catholic Health Australia — whose agencies operate four hospitals­ and nine aged-care homes in Tasmania — confirmed it was urging a halt to the bill to allow greater scrutiny.

“The private member’s bill … substantially amen­d­ed by the Legislative Council, should be subject to a lengthy period of public scrutiny and public hearings as an exposure draft, before being presented for a vote in the House of Assembly,” CHA chief executive Pat Garcia told The Australian.

Mr Gaffney rejected calls for a delay, saying public inquiries into similar legislation passed in Victoria­ and Western Australia suggested nothing would be gained. “There’s nothing left to analyse — it’s all there,” he said.

“In Tasmania, we’ve had bills in 2009, 2013, 2017 (all voted down) and now 2020. The bill should progress as quickly as it can downstairs and I’m sure the Premier will do that.”

Mr Gaffney said his bill, while allowing doctors to boycott the system, unashamedly did not allow faith-based hospitals and aged-care homes to deny VAD to their patients.

“They shouldn’t be able to (stop VAD occurring at their institutions) in a secular society,” he said.

“I’d be concerned that any organ­isation, where you’ve had a person resident for years, would then at their time of need, say, ‘well, you’ve got to get up and go because it’s not part of our policy’.

“If this becomes law, it is … a legal choice, so why would any institution­ deny a person access to adequate or correct medical assistance? VAD is not suicide; it’s a legal, medical option.”

Mr Garcia disagreed. “Euthan­asia is not consistent with good medicine — as acknowledged by the AMA and World Medical Council — or the Catholic ethic of compassionate care, which has marked the practice of medicine for millennia,” he said.

Mr Gutwein, whose Liberal MPs will have a conscience vote on the bill, would not commit to delaying it for a public inquiry.

However, he said it would have to fit-in around the government’s “comprehensive legislative agenda” for the remainder of the year, including next week’s state budget. “We will look at the options for bringing on the debate of this bill in the lower house,” he told The Australian. 

Faith-based hospitals and aged homes are concerned that “suffering” is ill-defined in the bill, potentially leading to people accessing VAD not due to intolerable physical suffering, but because they felt they were a burden or unable to enjoy quality of life.

However, Mr Gaffney said safeguards included clear medical and other criteria, and a multi-êstage process requiring approval from two doctors.