The Tasmanian parliament is set to become a fierce battleground next year as MPs debate the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill.
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Labor’s Lara Giddings and the Green’s Cassy O’Connor are introducing the bill, which aims to see voluntary euthanasia legalised in the state.
“From our perspective the primary aim of the legislation is to enable doctors to relieve suffering that they cannot relive in any other way,” Dying with Dignity Tasmania’s president Margaret Sing said.
Ms Sing said the legislation is based on evidence about what works from overseas.
Right to Life president Margaret Tighe disagrees.
“Once you drop that barrier, that barrier that says you mustn't kill people, then those who are promoting it they start looking at other people in the community whose lives are very unhappy or have some kind of chronic condition, for example they're looking at chronic diabetes, chronic heart disease,” she said.
The legislation does have strict restrictions and safeguards on who can request assisted dying.
“The reality is people don’t want to die, this is going to be the hardest decision that anybody is going to have to make and the hardest decision a doctor would make,” Ms Sing said
Ms Tighe said the law should not be changed for the small percentage of people who are unable to relieve their suffering.
“Legislation applies to everybody in the community and hard cases make bad laws,” she said.
Ms Sing believes it is about people having the right to make their own choice.
“People are entitled to their particular religious belief and values ... but they don't have any right to impose that view on the rest of us.”