Year-long investigation to gauge public opinion on allowing assisted dying for terminally ill adults finds most in state support the move

This article is more than 5 months old

This article is more than 5 months old

Queensland should legalise voluntary assisted dying for terminally ill adults, the government’s health committee has found.

A year-long investigation to gauge public opinion on voluntary euthanasia has determined most Queenslanders are in favour of it. It is the first time the state has ever considered voluntary assisted dying.

Currently, there’s no option to help terminally ill Queenslanders die.

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The committee found that every four days in Queensland, a terminally ill person takes their own life.

“This must stop,” the committee chair and Labor MP Aaron Harper wrote in a report tabled in parliament on Tuesday. “Suicide should never be the only option for Queenslanders suffering at end of life.

“This is just one of the many reasons the majority of our committee chose to support a recommendation for more choice for people suffering from an advanced progressive or neurodegenerative condition, through access to a voluntary assisted dying scheme.”

A sample bill has already been drafted by Queensland University of Technology professors Ben White and Lindy Wilmot.

“It’s an excellent bill,” the president of Dying with Dignity Queensland, Jos Hall, said.

Advocates want to see voluntary assisted dying legislated before October’s state election, but understand the response to the Covid-19 pandemic takes priority.

“It needs to be dealt with as a matter of priority at the first available opportunity,” Hall said. “Knowing that over 80% of Queenslanders support voluntary assisted dying, regardless of who forms the next government, we would like to see this dealt with.

“We would be pleased to work with whichever party forms government if this is not dealt [with] in this parliamentary term.”

The work to draft a bill could start now, said the chief executive of Go Gentle Australia, Kiki Paul. “Obviously, the world’s attention is, rightly, on the coronavirus emergency. But regardless, Covid-19 should not stand in the way of good, evidence-based law reform.

“The state government must accept these recommendations and begin the necessary work to fulfil the wishes of the Queensland people.”

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The committee of parliamentarians recommended euthanasia be limited to Australian citizens or permanent residents in Queensland with the capacity to make decisions.

To be eligible, patients must be diagnosed with an advanced or progressively terminal chronic or neurodegenerative condition that cannot be eased. Those with a mental health illness should not be ruled out, so long as they can make decisions.

Timeframes for a person’s assisted death should not be proposed, the committee recommended, in recognition of the complex, subjective and unpredictable nature of terminal illnesses.