“Right to Life Australia is saddened by the announcement that the first person in Victoria has been granted a permit and will succumb to the Andrews’ assisted suicide law,” said Margaret Tighe, President of Right to Life Australia.
We stand with medical associations around the world opposing assisted suicide and oppose euthanasia advocates who claim it just enables a ‘peaceful’ death. The American Medical Association voted as recently as last month (June 2019 by 71% to 29% to reaffirm its opposition to physician assisted suicide).
“Their website states that instead of engaging in assisted suicide, physicians must respond to the needs of patients at the end of life. Further, the website says a physician ‘Should not abandon a patient once it is determined that cure is impossible’.”
Mrs Tighe said, “We know from overseas experience in Holland, Oregon and Belgium that statistics show initial restrictions on assisted suicide for those with terminal illness expand to encompass more categories of illness and more people.”
She continued, “On a positive note in 2015, the British Parliament voted a resounding NO – in a vote of three to one – to allowing doctors to kill sick patients. They no doubt were influenced by the words of Dutch former protagonist of euthanasia – Professor Theo Boer – who after a number of years championing euthanasia, told the Parliament ‘Don’t do it’.”
Margaret Tighe said, “To quote a former South Australian Labor MP Tom Kenyon – in his speech opposing a euthanasia bill in the Parliament in 2016 – ‘It is always wrong for the state to kill its citizens even when they request it’.”
Finally, she stated, “There is no such thing as ‘just a little’ euthanasia.”
