The Catholic Weekly 27 September 2020

catholicweekly.com.au 4 NEWS 27, September, 2020 Julian Porteous, Live and Die Well advocate Ben Smith, and Southern Cross Care chair Stephen Shirley. More than 800 health pro- fessionals published an open letter calling on Premier Gut- wein to support growing calls for an inquiry into the private member’s bill. “We believe that crossing the line to intentionally as- sist a person to suicide would Law opposition grows CATHOLIC HEALTH Austral- ia has strongly rejected Tas- mania’s proposed euthanasia legislation and called on the government to instead invest in quality palliative care. Debate opened on the End- of-Life Choices (Voluntary As- sisted Dying) Bill 2020 in Tas- mania’s Upper House on 15 September and will continue each Tuesday until it goes to a final vote. Amid growing calls for an inquiry into the bill and its aims, CHA says it is not only flawed but undermines a cen- tral tenet of the Catholic faith – to value human life above all else. “CHA does not believe in- tentional killing is consistent with good medicine or the Catholic ethic of compassion- ate care which has marked the practice of medicine for mil- lennia,” said its chief executive Pat Garcia in a statement. “We know that half of the people who would benefit from palliative care are able to actually access it, and this is particularly so in regional Australia.” Mr Garcia said that CHA members, which include Ho- bart’s Calvary St John’s Hospi- tal and Launceston’s Calvary St Luke’s Hospital will neither offer the prescription of a le- thal substance to a person to help them end their own life, nor administer a lethal sub- stance to a person by a doctor to end their life. CHA joins a growing cho- rus of voices expressing con- cern or opposition to the proposed law, including the state’s former chief justice and governor William Cox, Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein, Hobart Archbishop fundamentally weaken the doctor-patient relationship, which is based on trust and respect,” they wrote. “We are especially con- cerned with protecting vul- nerable people who can feel they have become a burden to others.” Speaking in parliament, the bill’s author Mike Gaffney MLC, said that terminally ill Tasmanians have been una- ble to legally end their suffer- ing “for far too long”. “I see no reason for the continued denial of choice and dignity to those enduring untold suffering, pain and ul- timately death,” he said. But Mr Garcia said that if high quality palliative care was available to all, “the level of suffering which proponents of this bill rely upon to press their case would be eliminat- ed and with it the need for an assisted suicide bill”. Mr Smith agreed that more investment in palliative care and greater awareness of what it entails wouldmean not only greater choice but peace of mind for the dying and their loved ones. “It’s understandable for people to want a sense of con- trol about how their life will end, but there is a lot of fear and lack of information driv- ing this debate,” Mr Smith told The Catholic Weekly . “If we have quality palli- ative care options in place, and are willing to talk earlier about our dying, make ad- vanced care directives, set up our power of attorney and guardianship arrangements and those sorts of things, it will do a lot to reduce stress at the end of life or in those emergency situations when it’s easy to make a bad deci- sion.” ¾ ¾ Marilyn Rodrigues Fast and loose euthanasia legislation slated for Tasmania is alarming many in the state. In brief GKC gathering put off THE AUSTRALIAN Chesterton Society has decided to postpone its annual national con- ference held at Campi- on College due to COV- ID-19. The theme of this year’s conference, Chesterton and Wom- en: Romance and Re- ality , would have ex- plored the heroines in Shakespearean plays as well as in the novel Kristin Lavransdatter by Norwegian writer Sigrid Unsett. “Regrettably be- cause of the corona- virus restrictions and the uncertainty relating to travel for speakers and participants, the conference has been postponed to 2021,” wrote Chesterton So- ciety President Karl Schmude. Information on the 2021 Conference will be provided in the first issues of the Chester- ton Society’s quarterly newsletter, The Defend- ant , in February. NEW