#VAD #VoluntaryAssistedDying #health #auspol

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/canada-expanding-assisted-dying-criteria/xey6rub2i?dlb=[2023/07/17]%20del_newspm_bau&did=DM26809&cid=sbsnews:edm:acnewspm:relation:news:na:na

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day. I went to the hospital to witness paperwork for a patient who is seeking voluntary assisted dying.

Voluntary Assisted Dying is available in #Victoria (and other states) to people who meet the eligibility criteria. The law allows a person in the late stages of advanced disease to seek medical help to end their life. Some of the paperwork requires two witnesses.

#VoluntaryAssistedDying #VAD #AssistedDying #Euthanasia #EndOfLife #EndOfLifeDoula #DeathDoula

@sengupta Thank you Piali- there was something very serene/rebalancing in closure about finally having control over your health for the first time in decades in those final moments.

Major changes are afoot in other countries lie Australia for #VoluntaryAssistedDying in 2023 https://www.eldac.com.au/tabid/5757/Default.aspx Meanwhile in the UK, the Assisted Dying Bill is stagnating: https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/assisted-dying-bill-hl/

Breaking news! The ACT and the Northern Territory have finally gained the right to overturn the VAD ban imposed by a religious faction decades ago. A wonderful win for choice at end of life, ensuring the country will be united in assisted dying options.

#VAD #choice #EndOfLife #australia #AssistedDying #VoluntaryAssistedDying #DyingWithDignity

The pressures disabled people face in #Australia are not altogether very different from those of us in #Canada. Nearly half of disabled Australians live in poverty, over twice the OECD average and 2.5 times the Australian average: https://www.aruma.com.au/about-us/about-disability/disability-statistics/

https://justiceandpeace.org.au/living-with-disability/

We have 2x the unemployment rate & are more at risk of domestic violence, sexual assault, & mental illness. 100,000s of us sit on pensions that are half the Henderson poverty level, and less than 1% of rentals are even affordable to a person on the #DSP: https://www.miragenews.com/hearing-to-inquire-into-experiences-of-poverty-844466/

Our government has steadfastly rolled back pandemic protections over the last year: they know this plan will mass-kill disabled people, and create new disabled people, and they don't care.

So what’s going to happen when the state, refusing to offer enough resources to live, starts offering death on demand?

Many people don’t even qualify for disability services: non-citizens, except for refugees & asylum-seekers, can't get #Medicare (health care).

Non-citizens don't qualify for the #NDIS (support services) at all, regardless of disability severity.

Even citizens can't get the DSP (pension/money) without 10 years' residency and their condition being "fully treated" & "stabilised."

What does this mean?

#Eugenics #COVID19 #CovidIsNotOver #MedicalAbleism #VAD #VoluntaryAssistedDying

In #Australia, #VoluntaryAssistedDying (#VAD) is recently legal in #WesternAustralia, #Victoria, and #Tasmania. It becomes law in Queensland and South Australia in January and in New South Wales in November 2023. With the expected passage of the Restoring Territory Rights Bill 2022, it will certainly become law in the ACT, controlled by #Labor and the #Greens, both of whom support #euthanasia, and the NT, controlled by Labor.

As in #Canada, euthanasia deaths will be reported as their underlying conditions (whether or not those conditions would or could have killed the person). This will make it very difficult for disabled people to collect data & prove that these things are happening to us.

The Voluntary Assisted Dying (Review) Boards of Victoria, WA, and #Queensland do not include disabled people: they exemplify the idea that abled people know better than disabled people what is best for disabled people (and they have decided what’s best is death).

It would be ludicrous to suggest that a male gynaecologist had a better grasp of women’s rights and lived experience than women themselves, but doctors & family members are still seen are more valid arbiters of our own lives than we ourselves.

Doctors lack an understanding of disability justice, rights, & history; #eugenics; euthanasia; & #ableism; to say nothing of racism, anti-Indigeneity, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, & classism.

#SouthAustralia #NewSouthWales

cw: #transphobia, #audism

In #Belgium, doctors euthanised #NathanVerhelst, a 44-year-old trans man, after his gender affirming surgeries went poorly & he was rejected by his family. The same doctor previously euthanised deaf twins afraid they wouldn’t be able to talk with each other: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Feurope%2Fbelgian-man-dies-by-euthanasia-after-failed-sex-change-operation-8851872.html

Belgium has since become the first country to allow #ChildEuthanasia of *any* age: https://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/17/health/belgium-minor-euthanasia/index.html

#Colombia allows children as young as 7 to make the decision to be euthanised: https://latinamericanpost.com/20090-colombia-has-regulated-euthanasia-for-children-and-adolescents

While the #Netherlands considers children 13 and older able to consent to #euthanasia, the Dutch government is advancing legislation to allow children from 1-12 years old to be allowed to choose to die: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54538288

#Eugenics #VoluntaryAssistedDying #VAD

#Euthanasia safeguards are not enforced. In 2016, an elderly Dutch woman with dementia verbally refused euthanasia 3x, so Dr. #MarinouArends had drugged her with a sedative. When she still sat up & tried to resist being euthanised, Dr. Arends had her son-in-law hold her down.

Dr Arends was prosecuted and convicted for murder, and 220 Dutch doctors signed a letter saying they would not euthanise a patient without their express agreement, even though Dutch law doesn’t require it. (source in Dutch): https://nos.nl/artikel/2157398-grote-groep-artsen-tegen-euthanasie-bij-demente-ouderen

Arends was cleared of all wrongdoing by the #DutchSupremeCourt in 2020, which held that the woman’s refusal *was itself* evidence of her lack of capacity to decide for herself if she wanted to die, because of course any sane person would rather be dead than disabled or elderly.

Most English language news sources, such as this one, are supportive of this eugenic view, even presenting the same facts (drugging her, holding her down) as neutral or positive elements of the euthanasia process: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/groupthink-exposed-in-prosecution-of-dutch-doctor-in-euthanasia-case-1.4285547

This view has become so pervasive that as of 2016, 1 out of 30 people in the #Netherlands now die by euthanasia: https://web.archive.org/web/20210307123258/https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal-articles/social-consequences-of-assisted-dying-a-case-study

#VoluntaryAssistedDying #VAD #MedicalAbleism #Eugenics

If you're a progressive or somewhere on the left and you're wondering why disabled people are less than enthusiastic about #euthanasia "victories," I urge you to read this thread rather than dismiss disabled people's experiences out of hand.

The reality is many of us fear the unintended & deadly consequences for disabled people, which we are seeing play out across the world in every jurisdiction that has legalised euthanasia.

Euthanasia is inextricably linked with the #sterilisation and #genocide of disabled people.

In states w/ a history of legal euthanasia, like #Canada & the #US, euthanasia is overwhelmingly opposed by disabled people regardless of political affiliation.

In the US, 100% of disabled-run disability organisations w/ a position on euthanasia oppose it: http://notdeadyet.org/disability-groups-opposed-to-assisted-suicide-laws

While in Canada, over 300 disability organisations across the country objected to the expansion of Medical Assistance in Dying (#MAiD): https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/maid-assisted-dying-bill-c7-bc-1.5845306

(More on Canada later)

#VAD #VoluntaryAssistedDying #NotDeadYet #MedicalAssistanceInDying #Eugenics #Australia #Netherlands #Belgium #Colombia