Page 3214 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 September 1994
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me no confidence whatsoever that what we have before us is a good piece of legislation, leaving aside the morality of the question. I would urge members to consider very seriously how they will vote on it. It may be progressive and trendy to support something like this. I do not happen to believe that. I think that you create more problems than you help to solve.
We know that forms of mercy killing - if that is what you want to call it - go on in hospitals. I do not know that you have to codify it. Frankly, with the situation in our hospitals at the moment, I would be concerned, as Mr Kaine said, about whether we could ensure that patients had the right to receive relief from pain and suffering to the maximum extent that is reasonable in the circumstances. I am not having a shot at the situation in the hospitals; I am simply stating what is a fact at the moment. I have no confidence that we could necessarily enforce that. So I would urge members to consider very seriously what they are doing in supporting this legislation and the amendments to it.
MR STEVENSON (11.56): Madam Speaker, none of us could accuse Mr Moore of having a hidden agenda on this issue. There is no doubt about that. He has come out very strongly indeed. I think that he would go all the way with euthanasia. Bishop Power certainly needs to have his viewpoint put. He would have preferred to have no legislation at all. I think that many of us would prefer the same thing. There is one point that I have not spoken on yet that I think is relevant. That is the general right to refuse medical treatment. Not all medical treatment is beneficial to us. I have not been to a doctor for 28 years, and then it was only because I was in the Army and had to go along for what they called a medical check-up. Obviously, a lot of health problems are self-induced and can be sorted out if we remove the causes. We place far too great a reliance on medical treatment.
Most medical treatment involves drugs and surgery and the suppressing of symptoms of illness, rather than paying attention to the natural responses of the body and allowing the body to heal itself. I do not believe that you can heal a body. Only the body can heal itself. Certainly, you can provide the optimum conditions; but the amount of surgery that goes on is a problem. This Bill will allow someone to remove medical treatment or allow someone to reject medical treatment. In my own situation, I would refuse a great deal of standard medical treatment. That is why I had a concern with it. People have that right; but it depends on what you are talking about. It is equally true that some medical treatment can benefit a patient and that the removal of that treatment would cause the patient to die - not so much let the patient die as cause the patient to die. If a person is on life maintenance procedures and you take them away, they are dead. That is a concern that I had.
We know that there are some people who believe that blood transfusions should not be given. Should people have the right to refuse blood transfusions? Yes, they should. Some people would say, "That could be life threatening"; but I have spoken to people in the medical field and they have suggested that, in the majority of cases, a saline solution does the job handsomely. There can be all sorts of difficulties with taking blood from someone else's body and putting it into the patient's, because of the general reactions and responses of the body. So there would be many cases where what someone sees as beneficial medical treatment may not be beneficial. That depends on your education.
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