By Anthony Barich
IT appears euthanasia advocate Dr Philip Nitschke has helped the pro-life cause in South Australia where a Bill has progressed rapidly that could set a precedent for other States.
In what pro-lifers have called “the ultimate act of bastardry”, pro-euthanasia MPs rushed The Criminal Law Consolidation (Medical Defences – End of Life Arrangements) Amendment Bill 2011 through the Second Reading stage on 24 March without giving pro-life MPs notice to prepare opposing speeches.
But those who support the Bill have condemned Dr Nitschke’s plans to set up a euthanasia clinic in Adelaide, which the controversial doctor said could open its doors within a month.
Liberal frontbencher Duncan McFetridge, who co-sponsored the Bill, told The Advertiser on 30 March that “it is not a Bill aimed at stand-alone so-called death clinics”, adding that Dr Nitschke “has not done this particular Bill any good at all”.
“He is going to make it hard for us to get these people (possible supporters) back on side,” Mr McFetridge said.
This turn of events has given pro-lifers some hope after the Bill progressed so quickly, “not long after the ink had dried”.
“Some members I know are livid at what occurred,” said Paul Russell, former Adelaide Archdiocesan Family and Life Officer and founder of the national online network Hope: Preventing Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.
Mr Russell’s network contributed to the defeat of SA’s second euthanasia Bill in 12 months on 24 November last year. It marked the fifth time a State parliament had carefully considered and then thrown out a Greens’ euthanasia bill in the previous two years.
Mr Russell, who now works for NSW Right to Life, dismissed claims of Health Minister John Hill – that the current Bill is not about euthanasia but improving doctor-patient relationships – as “entirely euphemistic”. Sponsored by Labor MP Stephanie Key, the current Bill is based on a draft produced by Mr Hill.
“For the first time I have to thank Dr Nitschke, as what he’s suggesting is exactly what the Bill provides for. He’s telling the truth about the Bill when nobody else seems to be,” Mr Russell said.
“Most people see him (Dr Nitschke) as being extreme so it doesn’t help debate to have him around, but this is one of those rare occasions where what he’s said is actually quite lucid.”
SA’s new Bill inserts an amendment to the crime of homicide creating a defence for medical practitioners and those that assist them (including nurses) to either kill the patient or provide the means for the patient to commit suicide.
However, it plays on the misconception, often promoted by euthanasia advocates, of equating doctors’ “amping up the morphine” – as part of a holistic care and pain management – with “involuntary euthanasia”.
Calvary Healthcare chief anaesthetist Dr Gerard McGushin dismissed this when fronting a parliamentary committee in August 2009, saying that there was a clear definition within the medical profession between withdrawing treatment and administering pain relief, and ending life by way of euthanasia.
Mr Russell told The Record that doctors already receive the legal protection which SA’s new Bill purports to achieve in the Consent to Medical Treatment and Palliative Care Act of 1995.
“I have never given anything on the basis of ending people’s life,” Dr McGushin said at the time. “I don’t know any doctors that do.”