KAP should abstain from VAD Bill vote
THE three Katter’s Australian Party MPS should abstain from voting on the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2021 when it reaches state parliament later this month.
They have previously declared their opposition to it, even before seeing the details of the Bill, and their reasons centre around previously discredited arguments.
For instance, they equate VAD with suicide when it is nothing of the sort.
Suicide is an irrational choice between life and death made by a person who has their life ahead of them.
Voluntary assisted dying is a choice between a good death and a bad death by a competent and rational adult whose death sentence has been passed by a terminal illness or neurodegenerative condition and who wants to avoid further intolerable suffering.
The KAP MPS point to the need for extra resources for palliative care.
I agree and so, too, do many people supporting voluntary assisted dying. But it is not an either/or choice between palliative care and VAD.
Even experts and specialists working in palliative care admit that not all suffering can be alleviated by even the best palliative care.
Dr Will Cairns, former leader of palliative care organisations at the state and federal levels and director of palliative care in Townsville from 1992 to 2016, gave evidence to the parliament’s Health Committee Inquiry in Townsville in July.
Dr Cairns said: “I think there are very few palliative care professionals who believe we can resolve all of the issues from which people are suffering at the end of their life. We are pretty good at controlling pain. But certainly not to 100 per cent.”
Then there was Dr Edward Mantle, a palliative care specialist with the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service who does not actually support VAD, who told the Health Committee Inquiry in May 2019: “I will be very clear: I personally find the notion of voluntary assistance in dying to be somewhat abhorrent ... However, I completely support freedom of choice of individuals – completely. I think it is disingenuous, and it is probably closer to a bald-faced lie, when palliative physicians say that they can relieve all suffering for all patients. It is simply not true.”
The arguments used by the three KAP MPS don’t hold water.
Instead of imposing their personal views on their constituents, they should abstain from voting and allow the Bill to pass so that the people who put them in parliament can make their own choices about voluntary assisted dying.
If they do otherwise, they will be arrogantly ignoring the views of 80 per cent of their constituents.