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Speaker 1: Now the old euthanasia debate is heating up again because

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Speaker 1: ACT is pushing for changes to its end of Life

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Speaker 1: Choice Act. The proposed amendments include removing the six month

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Speaker 1: prognosis requirement and then adopting all twenty five recommendations from

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Speaker 1: a health ministry review. Ethos Alliance chief executive Alex Pink

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Speaker 1: is warning it's going to breach human rights and he's

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Speaker 1: with us.

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Speaker 2: Now, Hi, Alex, hy how are you hearing? Well?

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Speaker 1: Thank you? What are the human rights that you're worried about?

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Speaker 2: The key ones here are freedom of conscience, which is

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Speaker 2: a really important concept for for doctors or anybody involved

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Speaker 2: in the medical profession, which basically means the ability for

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Speaker 2: people to preserve their most important beliefs, the things that

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Speaker 2: give their life purpose, meaning and identity, the things that

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Speaker 2: if they had to go against them, they would feel

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Speaker 2: like they were betraying themselves. And there was a risk

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Speaker 2: with acts proposed changes that that's exactly what will happen.

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Speaker 1: Do doctors have to absolutely do this or can they

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Speaker 1: opt out of doing it?

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Speaker 2: No? No, So at the moment, what the law says

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Speaker 2: is that if you're a health practitioner, you don't have

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Speaker 2: to participate in euthanasia if you don't want to, unless

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Speaker 2: you are the doctor caring for a person who asks

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Speaker 2: for euthanasia. If you're in that situation and you don't

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Speaker 2: want to participate, what you have to do is tell

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Speaker 2: the patient where they can get a replacement doctor who

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Speaker 2: will facilitate euthanasia. But what Acts Changes would say is

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Speaker 2: that all health practitioners would have to give patients the

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Speaker 2: contact details for a euthanasia doctor. And it would also

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Speaker 2: start to narrow down the kinds of activities that doctors

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Speaker 2: and other health practitioners could be excused from participating in.

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Speaker 2: It will basically mean that health practitioners, for example, if

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Speaker 2: they were part of a team caring for a patient

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Speaker 2: who's going to receive euthanasia, they could have to be

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Speaker 2: involved in that way which have present they don't have

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Speaker 2: to be. The other really significant part of the bill

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Speaker 2: is that it would actually put new conscience limits on

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Speaker 2: care facilities, so that's places like hospice, hospitals, disabilities support facilities,

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Speaker 2: basically any place that provides what they call personal care

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Speaker 2: services or health services, which is anything like support with hygiene, mobility, showering,

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Speaker 2: even the provision of substantial emotional support, and those places

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Speaker 2: would have to be prepared to allow euthanasia to take place,

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Speaker 2: even if that goes against the whole reason they exist.

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Speaker 1: How do you feel about the six month month prognosis

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Speaker 1: requirement being removed?

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Speaker 2: Well, what that would do, I think is open up

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Speaker 2: to a whole range of long term conditions and disabilities

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Speaker 2: that aren't covered right now. And this is one of

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Speaker 2: those areas where you can write a law and it

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Speaker 2: sounds kind of nice, end and clear and black and

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Speaker 2: white on the page, but in real life it doesn't

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Speaker 2: translate to that kind of clarity uncertainty. So at the moment,

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Speaker 2: you know, you're already asking doctors to do a pretty

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Speaker 2: pretty tough task when you say, look, can you predict

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Speaker 2: that this person is going to die in the next

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Speaker 2: six months. If you start opening up to conditions that

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Speaker 2: are just expected to cause death at some point in

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Speaker 2: the future, you kind of open the box to a

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Speaker 2: really wide range of conditions. And if you're a doctor

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Speaker 2: at the moment, for example, who says, you know, I

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Speaker 2: can make my peace with euthanasia for end stage cancer

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Speaker 2: saying they might start to feel quite differently about this.

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Speaker 2: When you start talking about diabetes frailty, renal failure, and

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Speaker 2: all the other kind of conditions that are going to

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Speaker 2: come in.

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Speaker 1: But I mean, for the problem with the most obvious

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Speaker 1: problem with the legislation as it is right now, is

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Speaker 1: that somebody who knows that they have dementia and that

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Speaker 1: it's not far away where they are just going to

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Speaker 1: be not themselves anymore, cannot opt out of that should

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Speaker 1: they not be able to.

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Speaker 2: I think it's really important that the law actually says

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Speaker 2: you have to be competent in order to in order

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Speaker 2: to be eligible for there's some pretty obvious risks if

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Speaker 2: we start to get.

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Speaker 1: That's not what I'm asking about. What I'm saying is,

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Speaker 1: if you know that you're getting dementia, or you're getting Alzheimer's,

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Speaker 1: or you're getting something that is going whatever it is,

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Speaker 1: that's not necessarily going to kill you in the next

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Speaker 1: six months, but is going to really alter your life,

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Speaker 1: should you not have the option to end it.

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Speaker 2: I think basically, if we start opening up the law

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Speaker 2: to those kinds of situations, were really open Pandora's box.

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Speaker 2: So there's just an enormous potential for abuse in that

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Speaker 2: kind of situation. That's why the law has always been

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Speaker 2: very clear and drawing boundaries around this is one of

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Speaker 2: the things we were told would be a key safeguard

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Speaker 2: in the law, that we have drawing boundaries to say

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Speaker 2: that we can't open the door to that kind of

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Speaker 2: situation because too much could go wrong. That's fundamentally what

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Speaker 2: you're talking about there. That is not what Kew's voted

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Speaker 2: for in the referendum, and x proposed changes are not

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Speaker 2: what key We's voted for in the referendum either.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Alex, it's good to talk to you. Appreciate it,

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Speaker 1: Alex pink Ethos Alliance Chief Executive.

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Speaker 2: For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to

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