Destroying human embryos for research

The latest biannual report to Parliament from the National Health and Medical Research Council Embryo Research Licensing Committee was tabled on 30 March 2016. It covers the six month period to 31 August 2015.

So-called "excess" human embryos

Commonwealth legislation establishing a national licensing scheme for research involving so-called “excess ART [artificial reproductive technology] embryos” was passed in 2003, with all States and Territories subsequently passing complementary legislation. “Excess ART embryos” are human embryos initially created by the fertilisation of a human egg with a human sperm in a laboratory with the intention of implanting the human embryo in the body of a woman with the hope that it would develop through to live birth.

The routine practice of artificial reproductive technology in Australia involves:

• the chemical stimulation of the woman’s ovaries to produce several eggs at once; 
• the fertilisation of all these eggs by human sperm;
• the implanting of no more than two of the resulting human embryos into the woman’s body, and
• the freezing of all the remaining human embryos. 

The frozen human embryos may be subsequently thawed and implanted in subsequent attempts at gestating a human embryo through to live birth.

However, not all frozen human embryos get used before a woman decides to abandon further attempts at gestating live born babies, either because:

• an earlier attempt is successful and she doesn’t want any more live born children;
• a relationship ends; 
• she dies or becomes too ill to attempt pregnancy; or 
• the process of ART becomes simply too stressful.

Growing stockpile of human embryos

As a consequence the stockpile of human embryos in frozen storage continues to grow from year to year. In Western Australia alone there were 20,323 human embryos in frozen storage as at 30 June 2015, up 955 (4.7%) from 30 June 2014.

Those who believe the human embryo has no inherent value naturally see this vast stockpile as a source of raw research material.

Additionally, human embryos fertilised in the laboratory for ART are subject to various tests to identify those which are considered unsuitable or undesirable for implanting in a woman’s body. This includes those considered to have a lower chance of developing to live birth as well as those identified on eugenic grounds as having, or more likely to have, an undesirable characteristic, a genetic or chromosomal disability.

1279 "excess" human embryos destroyed for research 

Since 2003 a total of 1,279 so-called "excess" human embryos have been used and destroyed in Australia under a total of 14 licenses under the national scheme.

Of these 725 human embryos were used to create a total of 80 human embryonic stem cell lines. While the public and parliamentary debate in 2003 centred around a claim that human embryonic stem cells would be used to directly cure a range of diseases and injuries including diabetes, spinal injury and Parkinson’s disease in reality as the most recent report indicates these human embryonic stem cell lines are used for “basic disease research and drug development projects”. (There has never been a clinical trial using human embryonic stem cells in Australia and only five such trials in the United States, with one cancelled part way through and the other four still under way and yet to publish any results. All four trials under way are only testing safety not efficacy at this point.)

Of the other 554 so-called “excess” human embryos destroyed in licensed research, 149 were used in looking for new search and destroy methods to test other human embryos to identify those that were undesirable for “use” in an ART procedure. The remaining 405 were used in refining the manufacturing processes used in ART, including 259 human embryos used in testing a new freezing device.

Human cloning for destructive research

In 2007 the Commonwealth legislation was amended to permit, under license, the deliberate creation of a human embryo in the laboratory for the purpose of research. Under the new legislation, human embryos could be created by three ways: 

• somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) , which involves removing the nucleus of a human egg and replacing it with a nucleus from another human cell; 
• parthenogenesis, which involves activating a unfertilised human egg to develop in the same way as a fertilised egg; or 
• fertilising a human egg obtained from an aborted baby girl with human sperm.

No one has attempted the third horrific approach but it remains lawful in Australia, except in Western Australia where legislation to allow these three forms of creating human embryos for destructive research was defeated in the Legislative Council.

Since 2007 a total of five licenses have been issued to permit the creation of human embryos for destructive research, three using SCNT and two using parthenogenesis.

A total of 104 human embryos have been manufactured under these licenses using 683 human eggs. None of these human embryos were cultivated past the 32 cell compact morula stage so no human embryonic stem cells have been obtained in this way. The final licenses that permitted the creation of human embryos expired on 16 December 2015. So after an eight year experiment and the deliberate creation and destruction of 104 little human beings there is nothing to show.

Death of the innocent as the way to utopia?

Adding the two categories together the death toll from the 2003 and 2007 legislation stands at 1,383. However the seven current licenses already provide for up to 1,902 more “excess” human embryos to be destroyed.

Each one of us was a human embryo once. 

James L. Sherley, a stem cell biologist and Harvard graduate commenting on Harvard University’s push to be involved in human cloning wrote:

A defining feature of our humanity is that we also have the capacity to do the same for others whom we do not know. If the hands of members of the Harvard review board were sensitive enough, they could come to know human embryos better. They could feel that the smallest such embryos, like us, are warm to the touch, that they move as they grow, and they breathe just as surely as we do. (Boston Globe, 12 June 2006)

http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/06/12/crossing_line_on_cloning/

The willingness to destroy human embryos – the littlest of us – in pursuit of research into more efficient baby making; cures for diseases and more efficient eugenics is a sign of a society that has failed the fundamental test posed by Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov to his brother Alyosha:

Tell me yourself, I challenge you—answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance—and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth. (Brothers Karamazov, page 269)

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-h/28054-h.html

Australian parliaments have tragically passed laws pretending to bring us closer to utopia at the cost of taking the lives of several thousand human embryos. Like Alyosha Karamazov we must reject the idea that those “for whom you are building it would agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of the unexpiated blood of a little victim … and accepting it would remain happy for ever”.

All those who seek to defend human life should work for the repeal of the 2003 and 2007 legislation insofar as it permits the destruction of even a single one of the littlest ones of us.

Oregon Deaths by Lethal Drugs Continue to Rise

Oregon

Oregon’s Dying With Dignity Act allows for medical practitioners to prescribe drugs for self-administration by a person to allow the person to end his or her life.

Oregon publishes annual reports on the operation of the Dying With Dignity Act. The latest annual report for 2015 was published recently. 

A careful analysis of this data reveals significant issues with the practice of physician assisted suicide in Oregon and should sound a warning to other jurisdictions considering legalising assisted suicide.

1   Physical suffering is not a major issue but “being a burden” is

The Oregon annual reports indicate that physical suffering is not a major issue for those requesting physician assisted suicide. 

Of the 991 people who had died from ingesting a lethal dose of medication as of 27 January 2016 only 25.2% mentioned “inadequate pain control or concern about it” as a consideration.[1]

Earlier annual reports noted that “Patients discussing concern about inadequate pain control with their physicians were not necessarily experiencing pain.”[2]

However, in 2015 nearly one out of two (48.1%) people who died after taking prescribed lethal medication cited concerns about being a “Burden on family, friends/caregivers” as a reason for the request.[3]

Physician assisted suicide has more to do with relieving other people of a “burden” than relieving unbearable, unrelievable pain. 

To facilitate and fund euthanasia and assisted suicide of persons simply because feel they are a burden on family, friends or caregivers sends a cruel message to the disabled or chronically ill who may need the care and support of others in order to function in daily life. It implies that only the strong and fully independent have the right to live.

2    Mental health: No adequate screening

Research by Linda Ganzini has established that one in six people who died under Oregon’s law had clinical depression.[4]

Depression is supposed to be screened for under the Act.  However, in 2015 less than one in twenty five (3.8%) who died under the Oregon law were referred by the prescribing doctor for a psychiatric evaluation before writing a script for a lethal substance.[5]

In 2011 Dr. Charles J. Bentz of the Division of General Medicine and Geriatrics at Oregon Health & Sciences University explained that Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law is not working well.  He cited the example of a 76-year-old patient he referred to a cancer specialist for evaluation and therapy.  The patient was a keen hiker and as he underwent therapy, he became depressed partly because he was less able to engage in hiking. He expressed a wish for assisted suicide to the cancer specialist, who rather than making any effort to deal with the patient’s depression, proceeded to act on this request by asking Dr Bentz to be the second concurring physician to the patient’s request.When Dr Bentz declined and proposed that instead the patient’s depression should be addressed the cancer specialist simply found a more compliant doctor for a second opinion.

Two weeks later the patient was dead from a lethal overdose prescribed under the Act.

Dr Bentz concludes “In most jurisdictions, suicidal ideation is interpreted as a cry for help.  In Oregon, the only help my patient got was a lethal prescription intended to kill him.”  

He urges other jurisdictions “Don't make Oregon's mistake.”[6]

3    Financial considerations

Of the 991 people who had died from ingesting a lethal dose of medication as of 27 January 2016 some 3.1% mentioned the “financial implications of treatment” as a consideration.[7] 

It is appalling that 30 Oregonians have died from a lethal prescription after expressing concerns about the financial implications of treatment.

In two notorious cases, those of Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup, the Oregon Health Plan informed a patient by letter that the particular cancer treatment recommended by their physicians was not covered by the Plan but that the cost of a lethal prescription to end their life would be covered.[8]

4    The misleading notion of a peaceful death

Euthanasia and assisted suicide proponents hold out the promise of a peaceful death by fast acting lethal substances.  The lethal drugs most likely to be preferred by medical practitioners are secobarbital and pentobarbital.  As of 27 January 2016 secobarbital had been used in 58.5% of cases and pentobarbital in 39% of cases in Oregon.[9]

These drugs do not always result in a swift and peaceful death.

In 2015 nearly one in thirteen (7.4%) of those for whom information about the circumstances of their deaths is available regurgitated the lethal dose.[10]

The interval from ingestion of lethal drugs to unconsciousness has been as much as 38 minutes while the interval from ingestion to death has ranged from 1 minute to as long as 104 hours (4 days and 8 hours). 

In 2005, one patient regained consciousness 65 hours after ingesting the medications, subsequently dying from their illness 14 days after awakening.[11] 

Lumberjack David Prueitt who, after ingesting the prescribed barbiturates spent three days in a deep coma, then suddenly woke up, asking his wife “Honey, what the hell happened? Why am I not dead?’

David survived for another 13 days before dying naturally from his cancer.[12]

Since 2005 five other people have regained consciousness after ingesting the lethal medication, one of them some 88 hours (nearly 4 days) after taking it.[13]

In 2012 “one patient ingested the medication but regained consciousness before dying of underlying illness and is therefore not counted as a DWDA death.  The patient regained consciousness two days following ingestion, but remained minimally responsive and died six days following ingestion”.[14]

5    Cruel and unusual punishment

Since 2011 sodium pentobarbital has been used by several States in the United States in the execution of prisoners.

David Waisel, MD, an anaesthesiologist, has testified about the use of this drug in executions.

… as the lethal injection commenced Mr. Blankenship jerked his head toward his left arm and made a startled face while blinking rapidly. He had a “tight” grimacing expression on his face and leaned backward.

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Blankenship grimaced, gasped and lurched twice toward his right arm.

During the next minute, Mr. Blankenship lifted his head, shuddered and mouthed words.

Three (3) minutes after the injection, Mr. Blankenship had his eyes open and made swallowing motions.

Four (4) minutes after injection, Mr. Blankenship became motionless.

About thirteen (13) minutes after the injection, Mr. Blankenship was declared dead. Again, his eyes were open throughout.

Based on his lurching toward his arms and the lifting of his head and the mouthing of words, I can say with certainty that Mr. Blankenship was inadequately anesthetized and was conscious for approximately the first three minutes of the execution and that he suffered greatly. Mr. Blankenship should not have been conscious or exhibiting these movements, nor should his eyes have been open, after the injection of pentobarbital.

Given prior executions of Brandon Rhode and Emanuel Hammond in September 2010 and January 2011, respectively, during which these inmates reportedly exhibited similar movements and opened their eyes (Rhode’s eyes were open throughout the execution process), Mr. Blankenship’s execution further evidences that during judicial lethal injections in Georgia there is a substantial risk of serious harm such that condemned inmates are significantly likely to face extreme, torturous and needless pain and suffering.[15]

6    Increase in number of deaths

The number of deaths from ingesting lethal substances prescribed under Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act reached 132 in 2014, up 25.7% from 2014, continuing a steady rise since 1998, the first year of the Act’s operation when 16 people died under its provisions.[16]

7  Faulty prognosis

The Death With Dignity Act provides that before prescribing a lethal substance a doctor must first determine whether a person has a “terminal disease”.  This is defined by section 127.800 (12) of the Oregon Revised Statute to mean “an incurable and irreversible disease that has been medically confirmed and will, within reasonable medical judgment, produce death within six months”.

In 2015 one person ingested lethal medication 517 days after the initial request for the lethal prescription was made.  The longest duration between initial request and ingestion recorded is 1009 days (that is 2 years and 9 months).[17] 

Evidently in these cases the prognosis was wildly inaccurate.

Dr Kenneth Stevens has written about his experience of how the prognosis of six months to live works in practice under Oregon’s law:

Oregon’s assisted-suicide law applies to patients predicted to have less than six months to live.  In 2000, I had a cancer patient named Jeanette Hall.  Another doctor had given her a terminal diagnosis of six months to a year to live.  This was based on her not being treated for cancer.

At our first meeting, Jeanette told me that she did not want to be treated, and that she wanted to opt for what our law allowed – to kill herself with a lethal dose of barbiturates.

I did not and do not believe in assisted suicide.  I informed her that her cancer was treatable and that her prospects were good.  But she wanted “the pills.” She had made up her mind, but she continued to see me.

On the third or fourth visit, I asked her about her family and learned that she had a son.  I asked her how he would feel if she went through with her plan.  Shortly after that, she agreed to be treated, and her cancer was cured.

Five years later she saw me in a restaurant and said, “Dr. Stevens, you saved my life!”

For her, the mere presence of legal assisted suicide had steered her to suicide.[18]

8    Short relationship with attending physicians

The Oregon statute specifies that lethal prescriptions only be written by a person’s “attending physician” who is defined as “the physician who has primary responsibility for the care of the patient and treatment of the patient's terminal disease.”[19]

The data indicates that in some cases doctors have had a relationship with the patient of less than one week’s duration and that in 2015, in half the cases the doctor-patient relationship was of 9 weeks duration or less.[20]

A total of 106 physicians wrote 218 prescriptions during 2015 (1‐27 prescriptions per physician).[21]

Taken together this data suggests that there are some doctors in Oregon very willing to write prescriptions for lethal substances for patients they barely know.

9    Who administers the lethal medication?

In 2015 either the prescribing physician (11.36%) or another provider (9.84%) was known to be present at the time the lethal medication was ingested. 

For the remaining 78.8% of people there was no physician or other health provider known to be present at the time of ingestion.[22]  

In other words for nearly four out of five cases there is no independent evidence that the person took the lethal medication voluntarily. It may well have been administered to them by a family member or other person under duress, surreptitiously or violently. We can never know.

10    Increase in suicide rate

Proponents have claimed that legalising physician assisted suicide would actually prevent, or at least delay, suicides by giving those faced with a terminal illness an assurance that the means for obtaining  peaceful death was legally available. 

However, a study of comparative rates of suicide in US states found that for the states, like Oregon and Washington, which had legalised physician assisted suicide there is an increase in the overall suicide rate of 6.3% compared to all other states and of the sucide rate of those aged 65 and over of 14.5%.

There is no reduction in either the rate of non-assisted suicides or in the mean age of suicide.[23]

---

[1] Oregon Public Health Division, Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act: 2015 Data Summary, Table 1.  Characteristics and end‐of‐life care of  991 DWDA patients who have died from ingesting DWDA medications, by year, Oregon, 1998‐2015, p.6, https://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year18.pdf     

[2] Oregon Health Authority, Sixth Annual report on Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, 2004, p. 24 http://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year6.pdf

[3]Oregon Public Health Division, Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act -2013 Table 1, Characteristics and end-of-lif Oregon Public Health Division, Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act -2014,  Table 1, Characteristics and end-of -life care of 857 DWDA patients who died after ingesting a lethal dose of medication as of February 2, 2015, Oregon, 1998-2014, p. 5, http://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year17.pdf

[4] Linda Ganzini et al., “Prevalence of depression and anxiety in patients requesting physicians’ aid in dying: cross sectional survey”, BMJ 2008;337:a1682, http://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/337/bmj.a1682.full.pdf 

[5]  Oregon Public Health Division, Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act: 2015 Data Summary, Table 1.  Characteristics and end‐of‐life care of  991 DWDA patients who have died from ingesting DWDA medications, by year, Oregon, 1998‐2015, p.6, https://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year18.pdf    

[6] Charles Bentz, “Oregon’s assisted suicide law isn’t working”,  The Province, December 5 2011, http://blogs.theprovince.com/2011/12/05/province-letters-icbc-egypt-assisted-suicide-oregon-christmas-pre-marital-sex/

[7]  Oregon Public Health Division, Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act: 2015 Data Summary, Table 1.  Characteristics and end‐of‐life care of  991 DWDA patients who have died from ingesting DWDA medications, by year, Oregon, 1998‐2015, p.6, https://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year18.pdf   

[8] Susan Donaldson James, “Death drugs cause uproar in Oregon:, ABC News, August 6, 2008, http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5517492#.Ty9-VsXy8sI ; Dan Springer, “Oregon Offers Terminal Patients Doctor-Assisted Suicide Instead of Medical Care”, July 28, 2008, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,392962,00.html

[9] Oregon Public Health Division, Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act: 2015 Data Summary, Table 1.  Characteristics and end‐of‐life care of  991 DWDA patients who have died from ingesting DWDA medications, by year, Oregon, 1998‐2015, p.6, https://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year18.pdf

[10] Oregon Public Health Division, Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act: 2015 Data Summary, Table 1.  Characteristics and end‐of‐life care of  991 DWDA patients who have died from ingesting DWDA medications, by year, Oregon, 1998‐2015, p.6, https://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year18.pdf

Note that from 2010 reports of complications were only recorded if a physician was present at the time of administration so percentages for complications artificially decline as complications are listed as “unknown” for the majority of cases in which no physician was present.

[11]Oregon Health Authority, Death With Dignity Act, Year 14 - Table 1, Characteristics and end‐of‐life care of 596 DWDA patients who died after ingesting a lethal dose of medication as of February 29, 2012, by year, Oregon, 1998‐2011, p.3

https://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year14.pdf

[12] “Oregon man wakes up after assisted-suicide attempt”, Seattle Times, 4 March 2005, http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/oregon-man-woke-up-after-assisted-suicide-attempt/ 

[13] Oregon Health Authority, Death With Dignity Act, Year 14 - Table 1, Characteristics and end‐of‐life care of 596 DWDA patients who died after ingesting a lethal dose of medication as of February 29, 2012, by year, Oregon, 1998‐2011, p. 3, 

https://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year14.pdf

[14] Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act -2012 Table 1, Characteristics and end‐of‐life care of 673 DWDA patients who died after ingesting a lethal dose of medication as of January 14, 2013, by year, Oregon, 1998‐2012, p. 2, 

http://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year15.pdf

  

[15] State of Massachussetts, County of Suffolk., Affidavit of David B. Waisel, MD, p. 2-3, 

http://reprieve.webfactional.com/media/downloads/2011_06_28_PUB_Waisel_Affidavit_FINAL_DRAFT.pdf?utm_source=Press+mailing+list&utm_campaign=26dcb1127c-2011_06_30_Waisel_pentobarbital&utm_medium=email

[16] Oregon Public Health Division, Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act: 2015 Data Summary,  Figure 1, Oregon DWDA Prescription Recipients and Deaths by Year, 1998-2015,  p. 1, 

https://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year18.pdf

[17] Oregon Public Health Division, Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act: 2015 Data Summary, Table 1.  Characteristics and end‐of‐life care of  991 DWDA patients who have died from ingesting DWDA medications, by year, Oregon, 1998‐2015, p.7, 

https://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year18.pdf

[18] Kenneth Stevens “Doctor helped patient with cancer choose life over assisted suicide”, Missoulian, 27 November 2012, 

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/mailbag/doctor-helped-patient-with-cancer-choose-life-over-assisted-suicide/article_63e092dc-37e5-11e2-ae61-001a4bcf887a.html

[19] Oregon Revised Statute, Section 127.800 (2)

[20] Oregon Public Health Division, Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act: 2015 Data Summary, Table 1.  Characteristics and end‐of‐life care of  991 DWDA patients who have died from ingesting DWDA medications, by year, Oregon, 1998‐2015, p.7, https://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year18.pdf  

[21] Oregon Public Health Division, Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act: 2015 Data Summary, Table 1.  Characteristics and end‐of‐life care of  991 DWDA patients who have died from ingesting DWDA medications, by year, Oregon, 1998‐2015, p.4, https://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year18.pdf  

[22] Oregon Public Health Division, Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act -2014,  Table 1, Characteristics and end-of -life care of 857 DWDA patients who died after ingesting a lethal dose of medication as of February 2, 2015, Oregon, 1998-2014, p. 5, 

http://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year17.pdf

[23] David Albert Jones and David Paton, How does legalization of physician-assisted suicide affect rates of suicide?, SMJ: Southern Medical Journal, Vol. 108, Issue 10, p. 599-604, http://sma.org/southern-medical-journal/article/how-does-legalization-of-physician-assisted-suicide-affect-rates-of-suicide/

No right to do wrong

There are currently two Bills before the Senate – virtually identical in their terms – that would seek to undo the wise work done by the Commonwealth Parliament in passing the Euthanasia Laws Act 1997.

This Act clarified that the Legislative Assemblies of the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory have no power to make “laws permitting or having the effect of permitting (whether subject to conditions or not) the form of intentional killing of another called euthanasia (which includes mercy killing) or the assisting of a person to terminate his or her life.”

The Restoring Territory Rights (Assisted Suicide Legislation) Bill 2015 was introduced on 2 December 2015 by Liberal Democratic Party Senator David Leyonhjelm.

The Restoring Territory Rights (Dying with Dignity) Bill 2016 was introduced on 1 March 2016 by Australian Greens Senator Richard Di Natale and Australian Labor Party Senator Katy Gallagher.

Each of the Bills would remove from the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988 and the Northern Territory (Self-Government) Act 1978 the explicit restriction on the two Territories’ Legislative Assemblies from passing laws that permit a “form of intentional killing”.

Proponents of the Bill are running the primary argument that laws that permit the intentional killing of some people under some circumstances are good because (a) some people are better off dead and/or (b) people have a right to ask to be killed at a time of their choosing.

However, they are also arguing that regardless of whether or not you support euthanasia you should support the right of the Territories’ Legislative Assemblies to make laws permitting “that form of intentional killing of another called euthanasia”.

Now this argument is a patent nonsense. It is illogical.

There is an exact parallel with the slavery issue in the mid-nineteenth century in the United States of America.

In the Sixth Joint Debate between Abraham Lincoln and Judge Stephen Douglas during the campaign to represent Illinois in the Senate held at Quincy on 13 October 1858, Lincoln exposed the illogicality of Judge Douglas’s attempt to claim that he could say slavery was an evil but that Territories should have the right to have slavery if they wanted too:

So I say again, that in regard to the arguments that are made, when Judge Douglas says he “don’t care whether slavery is voted up or voted down,” whether he means that as an individual expression of sentiment, or only as a sort of statement of his views on national policy, it is alike true to say that he can thus argue logically if he don’t see anything wrong in it; but he cannot say so logically if he admits that slavery is wrong. He cannot say that he would as soon see a wrong voted up as voted down. 

When Judge Douglas says that whoever or whatever community wants slaves, they have a right to have them, he is perfectly logical, if there is nothing wrong in the institution; but if you admit that it is wrong, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong. 

When he says that slave property and horse and hog property are alike to be allowed to go into the Territories, upon the principles of equality, he is reasoning truly, if there is no difference between them as property; but if the one is property held rightfully, and the other is wrong, then there is no equality between the right and wrong; so that, turn it in any way you can, in all the arguments sustaining the Democratic policy, and in that policy itself, there is a careful, studied exclusion of the idea that there is anything wrong in slavery.

http://www.bartleby.com/251/pages/page366.html

During debate on the Voluntary Euthanasia Bill 2010 in the Western Australian Legislative Council on 22 September 2010 the Hon Helen Bullock MLC (Labor) said:

The Voluntary Euthanasia Bill raises the question of whether our election to Parliament gives us the right to sanction the killing of other human beings in circumstances other than self-defence or the defence of the nation. This is not a difficult question. The answer is simple. No. We do not have such a right. We do not have the right to sanction the killing of our fellow human beings.

No Parliament – including the Legislative Assemblies of the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory – has the right to sanction the intentional killing of human beings outside the context of self-defence or defence of the nation. Following Lincoln’s observation that we “cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong”. The Commonwealth Parliament was right in 1997 to clarify that the Territories’ Legislative Assemblies had no right to pass a law permitting a form of intentional killing. It would be wrong in 2016 to pass a law which would have, and is intended to have, the effect of purporting to give the Territories’ Legislative Assemblies the power to do the specific wrong of making a law permitting a form of intentional killing.

The Restoring Territory Rights (Assisted Suicide Legislation) Bill 2015 and the Restoring Territory Rights (Dying with Dignity) Bill 2016 should be permitted to die a natural death when Parliament is prorogued for the next election and should not be revived.

Remembering the day the killing was authorised

On 22 January 2016 nearly 50,000 prolifers braved a major blizzard to participate in the March for life in Washington DC held to mark the 43rd anniversary of that awful day in the history of the United States when the Supreme Court struck down all state laws against abortion in its infamous Roe v Wade decision. 

In 2015, when there was no blizzard, about 800,000 prolifers participated in the annual March for Life.

22 January 2008 was the last time the March for Life was addressed by a US President - George W Bush. His remarks on that occasion are worth recalling:

As I look out at you, I see some folks who have been traveling all night to get here -- you're slightly bleary-eyed. I see others who are getting ready for a day out in the cold. But mostly I see faces that shine with a love for life. 

I see people with a deep conviction that even the most vulnerable member of the human family is a child of God. You're here because you know that all life deserves to be protected. And as you begin your march, I'm proud to be standing with you. 

Thirty-five years ago today the United States Supreme Court declared and decided that under the law an unborn child is not considered a person. But we know many things about the unborn. 

Biology confirms that from the start each unborn child is a separate individual with his or her own genetic code. Babies can now survive outside the mother's womb at younger and younger ages. And the fingers and toes and beating hearts that we can see on an unborn child's ultrasound come with something that we cannot see: a soul. 

Today we're heartened -- we're heartened by the news that the number of abortions is declining. But the most recent data reports that more than one in five pregnancies end in an abortion. America is better than this, so we will continue to work for a culture of life where a woman with an unplanned pregnancy knows there are caring people who will support her; where a pregnant teen can carry her child and complete her education; where the dignity of both the mother and child is honored and cherished.

We aspire to build a society where each one of us is welcomed in life and protected in law. We haven't arrived, but we are making progress. Here in Washington we passed good laws that promote adoption and extend legal protection to children who are born despite abortion attempts. We came together to ban the cruel practice of partial birth abortion. And in the past year we have prevented that landmark law from being rolled back.

We've seen the dramatic breakthroughs in stem cell research that it is possible to advance medical science while respecting the sanctity of life. Building a culture of life requires more than law; it requires changing hearts. And as we reach out to others and find common ground, we can see the glimmerings of a new America on a far shore. This America is rooted in our belief that in a civilized society, the strong protect the weak. This America is nurtured by people like you, who speak up for the weak and the innocent. This America is the destiny of a people whose founding document speaks of the right to life that is a gift of our Creator, not a grant of the state.

My friends, the time is short and your march is soon. As you give voice to the voiceless I ask you to take comfort from this: The hearts of the American people are good. Their minds are open to persuasion. And our history shows that a cause rooted in human dignity and appealing to the best instincts of the American people cannot fail. So take heart.Take heart, be strong, and go forth. May God bless you. 

As the American people once again go through the long and complex process of electing a new President, prolifers everywhere in the world must earnestly hope that the next President of the United States will have as a top priority appointing new members to the Supreme Court who will finally revisit Roe v Wade and consign it to the dustbin of legal history along with such similarly appalling decisions as Dred Scott v Sandford which affirmed that slaves were chattel property and not persons under the US Constitution.