Why I am Opposed to Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Sixteen diverse perspectives

Articulate and persuasive arguments against legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia have been expressed by a broad range of individuals and organisations from diverse perspectives, professional backgrounds, political views and life experiences.

The sixteen articles collected here give a sampling of opinion pieces from indigenous leaders (Pat Dodson, Noel Pearson), disability activists (Stella Young), journalists (Paul Kelly), human rights lawyers, (Julian McMahon), academics (Richard Stith, Kevin Yuill), former and serving politicians (Paul Keating, John Anderson, Lindsay Tanner and Dominic Perrottet), palliative care physicians (Adrian Dabscheck), oncologists (Ian Haines), psychiatrists (John Buchanan) and medical organisations (American College of Physicians, World Medical Association).

From this diversity of perspectives there emerges a common view that legalising assisted suicide or euthanasia can never be done safely.

Firstly the very act of legalisation is premised, as Paul Keating eloquently explains, on a decision that “there will be people whose lives we honour and those we believe are better off dead”.

Secondly the claim to establish a “safe” regime of assisted suicide (in each jurisdiction claimed to be the very safest in the world!) is premised on a “bald utopianism” that deliberately ignores the reality that “no law and no process” can prevent wrongful deaths as evidenced in each of the jurisdictions which have tried this experiment to date.

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Opinion Pieces

From these sixteen diverse perspectives there emerges a common view that legalising assisted suicide or euthanasia crosses a threshold that should not be crossed and can never be done safely.

Richard Stith

“A culture of disdain for disabled and elderly persons is more likely to come about if we embrace a right to assisted suicide. Each endorsement of suicide endangers not only the lives but also the human dignity and quality of support relationships of persons with burdensome infirmities.”

American College of Physicians

"Some individuals might view themselves as unproductive or burdensome and, on that basis, as candidates for assisted suicide, especially if a physician raises it or validates a request"

Lindsay Tanner

The question at stake here is, not whether in some individual circumstances there is something morally wrong, but whether the state should legalise and indeed can safely legalise such practices. Our view on euthanasia should not be determined by our own experiences of one or two personal tragedies. We must look beyond those experiences to the broader view of the interests of society at large and the interests of the individuals who make up society.

Julian McMahon

"Legalising assisted suicide immediately places the elderly sick, and the most vulnerable under intolerable pressures. Over time, despite its intent to assist a few rational people to die, the changes in attitude it signals will undermine society’s support for the lives of the voiceless and those most in need. It should be rejected.”

Senator Pat Dodson

"If we give one person the right to make that decision—that is, to assist in committing suicide—we as a whole are affected. If we give one family that right, we as a whole are affected. If we give one state or territory that right, we as a country are affected. If we give one nation the right to determine life, our common humanity is affected. I cannot support this legislation."

Kevin Yuill

"The most serious case made by advocates for assisted suicide is autonomy. Yet what stands out for this most recent toleration of at least some suicides is the lack of autonomy; to be legitimate, it seems, suicide must be sanctioned by that new priesthood, medical authority."

Dominic Perrottet

"Doctors will make mistakes. Victims will be pressured. Judgments will be clouded, and among all the arbitrary rules and safeguards, only one thing is absolutely certain: innocent people will die at the hands of these laws."

Adrian Dabscheck

"I would like to question if the possible consequent good of allowing a highly selected population of privileged people the ability to request and be administered medical assistance in dying is sufficient to overturn millennia of accepted medical practice."

Paul Kelly

"Crossing the threshold to euthanasia is the ultimate step in medical, moral and social terms. A polity is never the same afterwards and a society is never the same. It changes forever the doctor-patient bond. In brutal but honest terms, more people will be put at risk by the legislation than will be granted relief as beneficiaries."

Paul Keating

"The culture of dying, despite certain and intense resistance, will gradually permeate into our medical, health, social and institutional arrangements. It stands for everything a truly civil society should stand against. A change of this kind will affect our entire community not just a small number of dying patients."

Ian Haines

"I have received many euthanasia requests from patients and families over my 34 years in full-time oncology practice, some very passionate, but I have invariably found that they quickly disappear as reassurance and adequate medication doses provide the comfort that is desired"

John Anderson

"We open this door at the peril of all future generations as we move one step closer to a heartless and expedient society where everything is expendable, including the lives of all those whom we, others, or even the state deem ‘unsatisfactory’”.

Stella Young

"Social attitudes towards disabled people come from a medical profession that takes a deficit view of disability. This is my major concern with legalising assisted death; that it will give doctors more control over our lives."

Noel Pearson: The choice to die was not one that society ever sanctioned

"The choice to die was not one that society ever sanctioned"

World Medical Association

"The WMA reiterates its strong commitment to the principles of medical ethics and that utmost respect has to be maintained for human life. Therefore, the WMA is firmly opposed to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide"

John Buchanan

If the message conveyed is that 'your life is not worth living', ill people pick upon it very quickly.