New South Wales Opposition Leader Mark Speakman has backed a Liberal MLC’s push to change euthanasia laws, insisting it would be a reasonable compromise for aged care homes to move a terminally ill resident to another facility if they want to choose the timing of their death. Source: SMH.
Liberal MLC Susan Carter has introduced a bill to the NSW Parliament to amend laws to allow residential aged care to “decline to facilitate the administration of voluntary assisted dying services in the same way, and subject to the same obligations to make alternative arrangements, as hospitals”.
Her bill has 12 co-sponsors, including fellow Liberals Anthony Roberts, Damien Tudehope, Chris Rath and Natasha Maclaren-Jones, plus Mark Latham and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MPs Robert Borsak and Mark Banasiak.
Ms Carter said her bill was not “a handbrake on accessing euthanasia”, but would give aged care facilities the “freedom and that choice that they do not have at present”.
However, her upper house colleague, Liberal MLC Jacqui Munro, said voluntary assisted dying was a choice for the terminally ill and her party should respect that.
“Under the current model no one is being asked to administer anything they’re not comfortable with or that goes against their morals. They simply need to open the door,” Ms Munro said.
Mr Speakman said Liberals would be given a conscience vote on Carter’s bill, describing it as an “extraordinarily difficult issue”.
“As I understand it, Ms Carter proposes to allow faith-based aged care facilities to decline to allow voluntary assisted dying on their premises, but not to allow them to obscure a resident’s choice to engage in VAD at another location,” he said.
“No balancing of competing interests is going to be perfect, but it seems to me to be a fair respect for the freedom of conscience of those in involved in faith-based institutions on the one hand, and allowing those who choose voluntary assisted dying to have that fulfilled.”
Under the current act, an aged care home “can choose not to participate in the provision of voluntary assisted dying services”. However, they must “not hinder a patient’s access to voluntary assisted dying”, according to NSW Health’s guidance for euthanasia.
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‘We are the party of choice’: Liberals divided on voluntary assisted dying changes (By Alexandra Smith and Anthony Segaert, Sydney Morning Herald)
