Queensland politicians will vote tomorrow to allow doctors and nurses to kill their patients.
The euphemistically named “Voluntary Assisted Dying” law allows doctors to “suggest” to a patient that they submit to a lethal injection or a cocktail of poison pills.
When granny falls ill after having not been visited in her nursing home for more than 12 months (something all too common), what power does that “suggestion” take on?
Arguably much.
The Liberal National Party leader in the Queensland Parliament, David Crisafulli, yesterday said he could not support the law.
The bill allowed people access to euthanasia before they qualified for palliative care.
“That doesn’t seem like a free choice to me,” he told the Parliament.
“This legislation stipulates patients have access to VAD at 12 months while specialist palliative care is only available to those with a prognosis of three months. I believe this bill unintentionally, but unavoidably, puts a lesser value on the life of the poor, the remote, the sick.”
This was a courageous speech but if only we’d heard from him and other sooner.
In short, the Queensland government is allowing cheap and nasty lethal jabs instead of fixing the grossly under-funded palliative care system.
And they’ll do it with popular support because people have never had a counterargument put.
We are selfish and we don’t visit our relatives in care. Ask pastors and chaplains, they’ll tell you.
There’s a ruthless pragmatism about euthanasia dressed up as “compassion”.
The question for euthanasia advocates is not whether there will be wrongful deaths, but how many?
Elder abuse is a thing and when does a “suggestion” to a vulnerable person become subtly coercive?
To borrow a line from my good friend Dr David van Gend, (whose writings on this subject everyone should read), how will anyone every know whether granny jumped or was pushed?
Experts say when patients have access to specialist palliative care, requests for euthanasia evaporate.
Yet in Queensland, access to euthanasia comes before palliative care for many people.
When it comes to church-run hospitals and euthanasia, there is no suggestion.
The Queensland Labor government will force them to do the killing against their belief in the sanctity of life.
Choice is the mantra that drives so much public policy, obscuring thought of the consequences.
The radical left and the libertarian right are ruthless in their enforcement of their new social order.
So ruthless that debate in the unicameral Queensland Parliament will be cut short even before all amendments are considered and debated.
The bill is expected to be supported by up to nine LNP members. Again, it is the useful idiots on the conservative side of politics that are the enablers.
Watching closely will be the New South Wales Parliament’s radical left independent MP Alex Greenwich and his right hand man the Nationals Upper House MP, Trevor Khan.
They plan to make euthanasia top priority once the Sydney lockdown lifts.
After tomorrow, NSW will be the last State protecting the vulnerable from unintended deaths.
The trouble is the public seem to support euthanasia. But that is because they are not told the truth.
In coming to the crux of his objection, Crisafulli said “but most importantly it breaks a fundamental tenant of our society – that human life is sacrosanct”.
His was a fine contribution to the Parliamentary debate. But it was the first anyone heard his mind on the matter.
It’s a shame he didn’t speak before five minutes to midnight.
Political debates are rarely won then.
The other side had spent years preparing the ground with almost no opposition.
Like future patients, the debate was already poisoned.
Lyle Shelton is Director of Campaigns and Communications for the Christian Democratic Party. To keep in touch with Lyle and the CDP, sign up here.