The more the “progressive” left scream and bluster that there’s no slippery slope, the faster they shove us all down its greased rails.
It took less than two years to go from a state-run mail-in opinion survey on gay marriage to radical transgender laws in Tasmania (the latter was direct legislative consequence of the former).
We’re sliding down the eugenics slope even faster.
When Australian state governments started passing state suicide laws (coyly called “Voluntary Assisted Dying”), as always, their proponents swore, hand on heart, that there was no slippery slope. There were iron-clad “safeguards”.
Next minute…
Draft right-to-die legislation in Queensland has widened the scope of euthanasia law, making “mental suffering” a ground for eligibility and providing earlier access to voluntary assisted dying for the terminally ill.
At least most jurisdictions waited to let state suicide laws settle in for a year or so before watering them down. Queensland hasn’t taken even that long.
Doctors will be allowed to raise with a dying patient the option of ending their life, while those with a disability or mental illness can apply for VAD under a draft bill framed by the Queensland Law Reform Commission.
The eligibility period has been doubled to allow all people given 12 months or less to live access to VAD, up from six months in the benchmark Victorian law and frameworks in Western Australia and Tasmania that are yet to come into effect.
When Victoria passed its legislation less than two years ago, its “safeguards” were touted as “ironclad”.
Hold my Nembutal, says Queensland.
The patient must be “suffering” to a degree they consider intolerable.
In an accompanying report, the QLRC said the definition of suffering was not limited to physical pain or symptoms and could include “mental suffering” as well as that caused by medical treatment.This is the first time the psychological impact of terminal disease been cited in relation to VAD law, along with the implications for mentally ill and disabled people.
Of course, the leftist grim reapers are trying to pretend that they’re not angling for death-on-request.
Although a person would not be eligible if they only had a disability or mental illness, they could be helped to die should they meet the other criteria of being terminally ill and having the decision-making capacity to elect for VAD, the QLRC reported.
For now. Who wants to take bets on how long it takes the “terminally ill”, let alone “decision-making capacity” caveats to get taken out the back and given a bullet in the head?
After all, the Netherlands took just 15 years to “progress” from passing “safeguarded” state suicide laws to drafting laws to allow anyone who “feels they have completed life” to off themselves with the state’s blessing. The Netherlands has also, notoriously, put down grannies who had to be dragged, literally kicking and screaming, to their death bed.
Unlike in Victoria, where the lethal dose is required to be self-administered in most cases, patients in Queensland could request a doctor or nurse to do it, though self-administration remained the “default option”.
Another point of difference is the assessment process: in Victoria, the second of two doctors who sign off must be a specialist in the medical area concerned.
In Queensland, the “consulting” practitioner could be another GP with the requisite five years’ experience and training in VAD.
Exemption from the minimum one-year residency requirement could be granted if a person from interstate had a “substantial connection” to Queensland.
The Australian
Still, at least there’s no slippery slope.
Please share this article so that others can discover The BFD