The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government has released a report advocating for a liberal expansion of its euthanasia laws, including allowing euthanasia for 14-year-olds and eliminating a timeframe of expected death requirement. The government is expected to introduce formal laws based on the report’s recommendations later this year. The ACT is a federal territory that includes the nation’s capital, Canberra.
One of the report’s most shocking recommendations is to allow children access to euthanasia, claiming that the current age limit of 18 is nothing more than “arbitrary.” Human Rights Minister Tara Cheyne said that the government will be considering lowering the age to 14.
“Many contributors noted that limiting voluntary assisted dying to those over the age of 18 was an arbitrary limit, given young people under the age of 18 also experience intolerable end-of-life suffering through terminal illnesses, and should have the same end-of-life choices as adults,” the report read. “Health professionals noted that, if pursued, this would need to be carefully implemented.”
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Cheyne told The Australian that requirements restricting euthanasia to those who are expected to die within a certain timeframe are also arbitrary. She claimed that terminal timeframes were limiting for people elsewhere in the country. “Certainly, what we have heard loud and clear is that a timeframe to death that has been applied in Victoria, and in all of the ensuing states of being 12 or six months, and that being the prognosis to death, has been problematic within the states,” she said.
There are some people who do receive a terminally ill diagnosis, but it may be several years until they are given a prognosis that they have less than 12 months or less than six months to live. The feedback that we’ve heard is really considered to be arbitrary in terms of timeframes and it’s much more about the definition of someone who is terminally ill and is suffering.”
Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP spoke out in response to the report, calling it the result of a “radical government.”
“The fact is, every jurisdiction in the world that has gone down the euthanasia path has then gradually stripped away its protections,” he said. “So, if we start as the ACT’s proposing to start, with the bar already very low, well they’re just going to end up in the gutter with no protections at all.”
Fisher also questioned allowing 14-year-olds to “make a life-and-death decision” when they aren’t even old enough to vote or drive a car.
