THE state of South Australia is often in the vanguard of social change. In 1894 it became the first place in the world to let women stand for parliament; in 1976, the first English-speaking jurisdiction to ban rape within marriage. It was the first place in Australia to decriminalise gay sex and outlaw racial discrimination. Now its parliament may make it the first Australian state to legalise assisted dying.
This week two members of the state parliament introduced a bill that would allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with medical assistance, provided that doctors thought they had six months or less to live, that their suffering was “intolerable” and that it could not be relieved by any “reasonably available medical treatment”. Assisted dying is legal only in Colombia, Canada, a few European countries and a handful of American states. But the practice has a long history in Australia. In 1996 the Northern Territory became the first place in the world to legalise it. Four people made use of the law in the nine months before Australia’s federal government overturned it and passed a law to prevent Australia’s three self-governing...Continue reading
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