mgpcpastor's blog

I’ve sent this letter to Mr Don Pegler, Member of Parliament for Mount Gambier, who has indicated his support for a bill to legalise euthanasia which is currently before the South Australian Parliament.

Mr Don Pegler,
Member of Parliament for Mount Gambier,

Dear Don,
I write this email to you asking that you reconsider your stated support for the euthanasia bill currently under consideration by the South Australian Parliament.
If correctly stated, your summary of the bill’s effect as being that “a person has to be of sound mind and suffering intolerable pain that can’t be alleviated through palliative care and with the approval of three doctors,” (The Border Watch, May 6) is not a correct application of the bill’s position that permits euthanasia on the basis of “unbearable suffering which cannot be alleviated to a degree the person finds acceptable.”
The bill does not make physical pain or the degree of physical pain; the nature of the illness (described in the bill as “an illness or condition that is likely to result in death”) or the degree to which that “illness or condition” is advanced; the availability of palliative care; or anything other than the person’s own convictions about their situation the grounds for granting approval. It is difficult to know what you mean by “sound mind” when the bill allows that approval can be given for euthanasia if it is determined that “that treatment for depression, or further treatment for depression, is unlikely to influence the person’s decision to request voluntary euthanasia.”
It is conceivable that the recent case of Melbourne woman Beverley Broadbent, who ended her own life though she was “not terminally ill, but wanted to die because she had completed her life and feared getting dementia or ending up in a nursing home where she would not have the freedom to choose a peaceful, dignified death,” (The Age, April 4) could fulfil the terms of the bill. All that such persons would need are doctors supportive of their conviction. The opinion of other medical professionals about the prospects for treating the person are not the decisive factor, but rather the subjective conviction of the individual about their own degree of suffering.
In addition to the concern I have expressed above, I would add that for groups as diverse as the Australian Medical Association, the SA Law Society, and People With Disability Australia to criticise and express severe reservations about the bill, means that a broad cross section of those with experience dealing in this very area believe it to be problematic, and open to misuse.
While the bill may appear “tighter”, I think you find that critical examination will confirm that any alterations that make it appear so have been included to gain support, and not make obtaining approval for euthanasia any more stringent than past models, and is, therefore, on the basis of your past opposition, not worthy of your support.

Gary Ware.
Pastor, Mount Gambier Presbyterian Church.