Sydney Health Law

Tag: euthanasia

  • Religious discrimination in Australian health law: hype or reality?

    Queensland has passed the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2021. I’m disappointed in Queensland’s Parliament, not for passing assisted dying legislation, but for consciously trampling over the religious beliefs of Catholic and other religious healthcare organisations. Catholic hospitals are right to be aggrieved.  It’s entirely predictable that church institutions are now considering civil disobedience. (See “Catholic…

  • Accessing assisted dying in Victoria: how will it happen, exactly?

    Last November, Victoria passed the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act, becoming the first Australian State to legalise assisted dying. The Act comes into force on 19 June 2019. How will a person lawfully use the Act?  This post provides a brief walk through the procedure established by the Act. This is not the first time Victoria…

  • Enabling the angels of death?

    Draft voluntary euthanasia legislation, called the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2017 (NSW) has been released for public comment. Drafted by a cross-Parliamentary working group, it may be the closest contender yet for the legalisation of assistance-in-dying for people living in NSW who are suffering from a terminal disease. A short summary of the Bill appears…

  • Dr Rodney Syme and Nembutal

    A Good Death In the mid-1970s, a Melbourne urologist, Rodney Syme, sat facing Len, a man whose invasive bladder cancer was causing incontinence and blood clots that blocked the flow of urine. Len needed to urinate every fifteen minutes, and frequently wet himself.  He was in excruciating pain.  It is cases like this, Syme would…