ENDING LIFE WITH DIGNITY BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 21 February 2013.)

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (10:43): I rise today to speak on the Ending Life with Dignity Bill, and it certainly is with some hesitation because this is such a sensitive topic for many people, however, I do so in my position as the member for Adelaide. In 2011 I sent out a survey to every single household in my electorate and, from the results that came back from 245 surveys, 73 per cent were in favour of voluntary euthanasia, with 16 per cent against and 11 per cent undecided.

Whilst I agree, based on those results, that we should pass this bill which allows voluntary euthanasia, I indicate that I would like it to go through to committee so that we can really get to the nuts and bolts of all of the clauses. Whilst 73 per cent of people in any electorate are in favour of voluntary euthanasia, I think there are still some concerns held in the wider community.

I have researched this extensively, and I have had many calls, emails and letters of correspondence to my electorate. I have been to seminars, forums and information sessions both for those for voluntary euthanasia and those against, because I wanted to really understand all of the sides of this argument.

From going to a seminar for people against voluntary euthanasia, the main things I could see that were of greatest concern to them was they did not want euthanasia just to be pushed under the carpet with no record and statistics. One concern was that they would like it particularly to be noted on the death certificate that it might be euthanasia due to terminal bowel cancer, or whatever the reason was, so statistically there could be a record and it cannot be hidden, so that it is upfront and out there.

One of the other issues was unscrupulous family members or beneficiaries of wills who perhaps could coerce weaker people when they are near to dying, and I think that has been addressed in the bill that is in front of us now, and I would urge the house to perhaps let it go through to committee so we can discuss those issues.

From my reading of this bill, it is quite restrictive. It is for the terminal phase of a terminal illness. There are two doctors involved and it must be witnessed by two adults over 18 who are not related and do not stand to benefit. I think it is about as narrow as you could get, and I see that there are a lot of older people who are particularly fearful of dying in pain and without help or adequate pain relief.

My mother passed away in January of terminal cancer and she was fortunate enough to be at home, and it was her wish that if euthanasia existed she would have used it. For two years she fought cancer and, I would have thought, if voluntary euthanasia was available to her, it perhaps would have shortened her life by one to two months. That was at the phase where she was no longer able to leave her bed.

She was no longer able to toilet herself, feed herself—or do anything, really. It was pretty well like watching a skeleton of a person diminish before your very eyes. She was not on painkillers or Morphine and was not able to move herself at all and, when she did ask for my assistance, even with a slight touch, there was a screech of pain; so, clearly, there was a lot of pain being felt. But she did not want Morphine and did not feel that she needed it.

Others should not have to see that and go through it and I think we should look for a possible outcome. I think that this bill might be able to help some people, and I would ask that it go through to committee so that we can discuss each of the clauses and make this as safe as possible for those who wish to use it. I commend the bill to the house.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (10:48): I challenge anybody in this place—anybody—to question what the member for Adelaide has just said about the ability to provide death with dignity. It is not about killing people, it is not about disposing of people and it is not about expediting an early death for financial purposes. It is about dying with dignity. It is about enabling people we love and people we care for to be given the treatment that I as a veterinarian was able to give to animals.

I could make a decision and give an animal an injection and that animal would go to sleep peacefully and with dignity. I have had grown men crying and adults prostrate on the floor of my vet clinic over their pets because they miss them so much, but that love for their animals is nothing in comparison with the love for an individual, as we have just seen from the member for Adelaide.

It is so important that we have this legislation in this place. It is so important that we have this legislation go to committee in this place so that we can ask questions. If you have issues with this legislation, I dare you, take it to committee, ask the questions to the member for Fisher. Ask three questions on every clause of the member for Fisher. Ask everything you want.

If you can then say that your conscience, which is representing your electorate's conscience, is saying you should be voting this legislation down, well you do it. But I can guarantee that I will be here after 2014 because the member for Morphett knows what his constituents think. I know they support a choice on voluntary euthanasia. I know they support death with dignity. I know that they are thinking people, they are 21^st century people, they are not living in the past.

This is not about keeping people here in a living hell to keep them out of a heaven which, if it is such a good place, why would you want to keep somebody away from there? I shouldn't be glib about it but it is just so frustrating for me to see people who want to dictate to the whole of this population in South Australia their beliefs based on a belief which to them is true—and I do not want to denigrate that in any way, shape or form—but, please, they do not represent the people of Morphett, they do not represent the vast majority of South Australians and they should come into the 21^st century and allow people to die with dignity.

I strongly support this bill and I encourage everybody in this place to make sure this bill goes through to committee. If you object to it, ask your questions then. Stand up, have the courage of your convictions, have the courage of your own conscience and ask the questions about why this bill should not be passed.

The Hon. L.R. BREUER (Giles) (10:51): I personally do not support euthanasia. It is a personal feeling of mine and it is based on experience I have had with somebody who begged me to get the doctors to give them an injection, and I had to say to him, 'No, I can't do that. It is not possible. It is not within the law.' He survived the illness that he had and lived for another five years and had absolutely no recollection of ever saying that to me. It was after a bad car accident that he had and some weeks after the accident. So, it has always been in my mind that people may not make the right decision at the right time and that is why I personally do not feel comfortable about euthanasia and supporting it. I think it happens. I think there are already things in place that make it happen.

However, listening to the very moving contribution by the members for Adelaide and Morphett and other contributions in the past, I would always support the legislation when it goes through because I think other people should have that choice. I think many of us in this place have lost a parent and many of us have lost a parent to cancer. I had a similar situation. It was not appropriate for my mum at the time, but in other cases it may be appropriate, and I think this is what we should all think about when we come to this decision. It is not about us. It is about the people out there we are representing and their beliefs and what they want, so I would support the legislation going through to the committee stage.

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (10:53): I had not intended to speak on this but I think I will. I am torn, I really am. I have a deep philosophical belief that from the moment of conception we have a soul, and I have said that in this place before because I truly believe it. I am torn because of the words that the member for Adelaide spoke about where she has a personal reflection upon a person very dear to her about what she suffered over a period of time but particularly in the last two weeks.

I am torn because, as part of the consultation that I wanted to undertake with my community as the member for Morphett has, I posed this question to people. It has been publicly reported to the area, and I have spoken to probably about 50 people about it, off the top of my head. The overwhelming majority of people who contacted me were against because of deep religious beliefs that they hold.

I am torn because I have a person close to me who worked in the medical profession for a long time in high dependency, who has seen terrible things occur and who tells me that no matter what the level of palliative care that exists, 10 per cent of people still suffer excruciating pain. I am torn because of the belief that I hold to but I also accept the realisation of that fact that for some there is no level of care that will give them relief that they crave.

As a society we are divided. I am publicly told about the figures and I think it is 81 per cent or 85 per cent who support it; they are the figures quoted on that, but I know it is a very difficult issue. There will be some in my community who are upset about the fact that I am standing and speaking on this, but I want to put on the record some of the things that I have thought.

I commend the member for Adelaide for the way in which she held herself together when she talked about her own mother. I am torn because of a personal issue I dealt with probably five years ago. I had a call from somebody who is close to me who was attempting suicide at the time. I was in this building at the time; it was a non-sitting day. When the call came through to me, I knew I had to speak about it to someone else who was equally involved with this person, but I had to try to respect the wishes that person had conveyed to me, too.

It was totally consuming my mind and, in the end, I jumped in the car and drove to the house of this person, and I broke in and found this person who had attempted suicide but was still alive. I was faced with the dilemma of trying to respect their wishes but also respecting the sanctity of life. So, what was I to do? I rang for an ambulance.

That person recovered, but I have had to deal with a person who is not a relative but a person I have known for a long time. Had I betrayed the trust they had put in me and, indeed, their belief and confidence in me and the level of respect they have shown for me because of the personal decision I had made about contacting the ambulance? This person was revived. She has continued to live and to contribute. She continues to go to work and all that sort of stuff, but it has been a bit of an unspoken issue between the two of us, too.

I really do respect the way in which the bill was introduced. I am torn because my basic philosophical belief is to support the sanctity of life, but I do think that the debate needs to occur. I am not sure that I believe the 85 per cent, or thereabouts, that is quoted as supporting it because the overwhelming opinion of those in the community I serve who have contacted me is that they are against it. However, I am a person who believes in science and facts, and I also believe in the state moving forward.

I am going to listen very intently to every contribution that is made in this chamber about this issue because this is an issue that, if it is not resolved as part of this bill, it is going to continue to come forward all the time. I understand that, on this issue, there is a very fine line in relation to the numbers in this chamber.

In my heart, I think that I will vote against the bill because of what I believe in, but I am quite willing to take part in a debate on it and to ask questions about it, so that I can have a greater understanding of the intent of the bill, because the people who have spoken to me have concerns about it, and they want some of those concerns to be not just outlined but, indeed, questioned. So, that is why I think that some level of debate is necessary, but I do recognise the fact that for all of us in this chamber, no matter what way we vote, it will be with a heavy heart as to what we do.

The SPEAKER: Member for Taylor.

Mrs VLAHOS: I seek leave again to have the matter adjourned until the next sitting day.

The SPEAKER: So, you are moving that it be adjourned? Is that seconded?

An honourable member: No.

The SPEAKER: When I asked for seconders, 'No' is not an appropriate answer. If I am not mistaken, someone said yes.

Mrs GERAGHTY: May I raise a point of order, sir?

The SPEAKER: Yes, you may.

Mrs GERAGHTY: Generally, the convention within the house is that, if there are people who want to speak on a particular bill, we give them that courtesy to speak on it and then it is adjourned afterwards.

The SPEAKER: I do not think that is a matter of standing orders.

Mrs GERAGHTY: No, indeed not.

The SPEAKER: In fact, I do not think it is a point of order. I have ignored the member for Taylor on two occasions and let other people speak, and I now think it is incumbent on me to give the member for Taylor the call, and she has moved that it be adjourned. The appropriate course of action is not to take a point of order but to vote against the adjournment.

Mrs VLAHOS: Mr Speaker, I seek to withdraw that, on the understanding that a vote will not be put today.

Leave granted; motion withdrawn.

The SPEAKER: The motion is withdrawn. I therefore call the member for Waite.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (10:59): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have great sympathy for this bill in so many ways. I have spoken against similar bills on previous occasions. I understand as well as anyone why we might seek to pass this bill. I understand the pain and the agony of those suffering and dying in great pain and why we might seek to enable legislation for, in effect, the legal suicide of those people so that they can be put out of their extraordinary misery and anguish and that their families can move on. There is a sound justification for this bill in so many ways. The problem, however, that I have with the bill, as is often the case, is that you solve one problem with a piece of legislation and in so doing create other problems, and those other problems can turn out to be far more substantial than the one you have solved.

I listened with sensitivity to the contribution from the member for Adelaide and I am well aware of the pain that she and her family have been through and I respect her view and the member for Morphett and the many others who have supported this bill. I think in many ways they are right, but the issue of life and death is a Rubicon. The issue of life and death is a threshold issue, and if you want to cross over that river, you go into very dangerous territory, in my opinion, as a parliament.

The state government and the governments generally in this country have been happy to support laws in the past that have involved killing people. We used to have the death penalty and the state was executing people. Even today we have soldiers deployed on operations overseas, killing people in the name of this nation. Killing people legally is not something new to the legislatures of this country, but this is something altogether different.

For those who argue that legalising suicide is justified in this particular case, I just put the argument that suicide is never good. Suicide leaves nothing but wreckage, heartache and misery in its wake. We all understand the pain of dying in agony. We all understand, as others have put, why one might want to give those people a way out, a way out other than the existing ways out—the medical solutions, the family-supportive solutions, the various other solutions that nature has given us other than suicide. But once you say to people it is alright to commit suicide if you are in excruciating pain, I know exactly where this will go and I will give the parliament a couple of examples.

Regardless of what people think about abortion, and I in no way seek to reverse the current status quo in this state with regard to abortion, I remember the debates in the early 1970s. There were all these safeguards, there were all these control measures, you needed to have an opinion of two doctors and a psychiatrist, all the safety procedures were put in place, this was going to be something that only happened very rarely in the most extreme circumstances. Well, that is where it starts, then there was another bill, and then another bill, and then another bill and what you finished up with is virtually abortion on demand. I am not passing a judgement on that.

Personally, I think we have probably got our settings right on that issue to be frank; others will have a different point of view, but I just offer it as an example of where you start at one threshold and then the threshold lowers. I will give you another example. This parliament debated de facto laws many years ago and people argued then that it would undermine the institution of marriage—people argued then that if you introduced de facto laws pretty soon same-sex couples would be asking for de facto recognition—

Mrs Geraghty: And what's wrong with that?

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: In my opinion, not a great deal. I am not passing judgement on that issue. I am simply giving it as an example of where you start at one point and then come the amendments, then come the changes, then comes the watering down of that, until eventually the control measures are gone and you throw it open.

Let me get back to the issue before the house. We have a bill before us that has all sorts of safeguards. We are assured that this will only be used to help those people who are suffering painfully and extraordinarily in remarkable circumstances and who need this as a device to escape from their misery. I know exactly what will happen. Soon we will have people with mental illnesses contacting their local MPs saying, 'I am in unbearable and unimaginable pain; I cannot go on with my mental illness', or we will have people with physical or medical conditions that they regard involve absolutely unbearable suffering. They will present a very good argument, that if it is alright for those people with, for example, terminal cancer or agonising illnesses, 'Why is it not alright for me?'

Then individual members will be coming in here with a bill saying 'Let's extend the interpretation, let's extend the threshold of illnesses or diseases that qualify for people to be able to legally suicide.' That is where it will start, and pretty soon we will be back here again. Instead of needing the opinion of this number or that number of medical experts to tick the box and give their approval, that will be watered down and, over a period of time, it will be virtually suicide on demand. That is where it will end up; suicide on demand.

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I call the member for Torrens to order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Going back to my example of the abortion debate, and regardless of people's view on that, those who argue that this will not happen need to recognise that in the opinion of some we now have abortion on demand, and this is where it will go. As I said, I am not passing any judgements on the issue of abortion or de facto relationships, but I am making the point that this is where it will end on that particular matter. For that reason this is a very, very dangerous proposition, a very dangerous proposition indeed, because there are so many reasons people will want to commit suicide.

We know that, we only need to look at the suicide statistics. They will not want to be a burden on their families, they will feel that they should put their families out of their pain or misery. There will be financial issues and family wealth distribution issues that come into play that weigh on the minds of loved ones and the ill when these circumstances arise. It will happen. There will be family issues—and families have conflicts—that add weight and pressure on people to commit suicide. We will finish up with a set of laws where, in my opinion, it is effectively suicide on demand. Is that where we want to go, or not?

I can tell members that the issue of life and death is a threshold core issue. People can get up and try to argue logically about this until the cows come home, they can get up and try to present their logical, rational arguments as to why we should pass this bill or not, but at the end of the day this is a value judgement. Do you value life or not? Do you support suicide or not, legal or illegal? Do you think that people should be legally empowered to commit suicide? Is that a message that we want to send out there to the broader community?

Those who are of a religious persuasion will argue 'Do we want to play God?', and they make a very good point. We all know that there are a thousand things that nature or God, depending on your view, has inflicted upon humanity. There are many pains, there are many illnesses, there are many sufferings, and nature or God gives you a way in and gives you a way out. We may not be happy with the deck of cards we get dealt, but if this parliament thinks it should play God then it should do so with a very sober heart indeed.

I say to the proponents of this bill: we understand your pain, we understand why this bill is before us. It is of meritorious and honourable intent. But my argument is simple: this bill will have unintended consequences. It will start with the bill before us, and we will finish up in a place where this country, this community does not want to be. I think that would be very sad for our children, our grandchildren, and for those who come beyond.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Vlahos.