Talking Point: Right to die will ease needless pain

LARA GIDDINGS: Public support is overwhelming for voluntary assisted dying.

Shadow Attorney-General Lara Giddings wants to give people the right to die with dignity.

THERE is a people’s movement building in Australia. Rather than continuing to patiently wait for politicians to support voluntary assisted dying legislation, these people are demanding that we show courage, compassion and leadership on this sensitive issue.

The question is, will we?

We have read and listened to the tragic stories given voice through the advocacy of Andrew Denton and Go Gentle Australia. We have shared the pain of Nikki Gemmell writing of her mother, who was driven to a lonely and desperate suicide, not able to live any more with her unbearable pain. And we have shed tears watching stories on our TVs of people like Rose, who took her own life as she was losing her ability to speak, to walk, to eat and to live with no pain.

Poll after poll has shown that about 80 per cent of people support voluntary assisted dying laws in this country.

As politicians we can no longer fail to listen to these people. We can no longer use excuses that we support the principle, but not this Bill. By doing otherwise, we are condemning more people to suffer more pain, more indignity and for some a lonely death as they suicide on their own, for fear of dragging their loved ones into the hands of the law, as happened to the son of Elizabeth Godfrey right here in Tasmania.

The Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill to be debated on Wednesday includes changes from the last Bill in 2013 to improve the safeguards. I strongly believe that we have got the balance right and that it is a robust Bill with many checks and balances to protect vulnerable people.

Interestingly, our Bill is most closely aligned with Canada’s. Their legislation came about last year after the Supreme Court in a unanimous 9-0 judgment required the Parliament to create a law to regulate voluntary assisted dying. To continue to ignore this issue, we leave people vulnerable.

The fact is people are taking their own lives when it becomes unbearable to suffer any more. For some they have found a way to access Nembutal and have it at the ready to take when they can no longer tolerate their pain and suffering. For others they are ending their life in a risky environment, without proper medical care or with their loved ones by their side. The Victorian Coroner’s Court data showed that over a four-year period 240 people, suffering from irreversible deterioration in physical health due to disease or injury, took their lives, often in terrible ways.

This is not a debate about palliative care. Our palliative care system is run by people who are compassionate and help many Tasmanians to experience a comfortable death. But palliative care does not take away the pain and suffering for everyone. There are some, a small number of people, who will continue to suffer no matter what pain relief they are given. These are the people who are depending on us to provide them, as a last resort, with the right to end their own life at their choosing.

As a man I greatly admire, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, recently said: “Dying people should have the right to choose how and when they leave Mother Earth. I believe that, alongside the wonderful palliative care that exists, their choices should include a dignified assisted death.”

Lara Giddings is Labor’s shadow Attorney-General.