Welcome.
Here at the Australian Family Association we've been concerned for some time that the public debate on end-of-life matters suffers from a lack of understanding of the substantive issues such as:
- What palliative care really means
- The effect that a public policy supporting euthanasia and assisted suicide would have on our society
- How such a policy would affect the aged, the infirmed and those living with a disability
- The negative effect that euthanasia and assisted suicide would have on our medical professionals and on the level of care and support for the aged, infirmed and those living with a disability.
We have gathered together articles from across the globe by leading experts on these issues and we thank them for their contribution. We have also provided links and videos - we hope you use them.
Ultimately the question we must ask ourselves is: what kind of society will we leave for our children and grandchildren? There's plenty of evidence from the Netherlands, from Oregon and elsewhere that tells us that once the euthanasia and assisted suicide genie is out of the bottle, safeguards become meaningless. There's no doubt that society, in those places, is worse off - not better.
We hear the word 'compassion' bandied about freely by those who support the right to euthanasia. Compassion means 'to suffer with'. An act of euthanasia or assisted suicide cannot be 'compassionate' because it does away with the object of our compassion - there's no 'with'!
We hear the word 'dignity' associated with euthanasia. Again, our contributors argue that this is false. Euthanasia supporters say that 'we treat our dog better' (by euthanasing it). But is it dignified that we should support our elderly, our infirmed and those with a disability being treated like dogs?
In Australia we have some of the best palliative care services in the world. Observing that the Netherlands has very limited and under-resourced palliative care facilities and you start to see the problem. Yet few Australians, we would argue, have any meaningful understanding of what palliative care services really offer. We hope that this website will help change that.
Jerome Appleby BA LLB
Australian Family Association
Adelaide, South Australia