The Victorian Upper House voted this month to reject legislation that would have enabled terminally ill patients to ingest a drug to end their lives. The Legislative Council chose wisely.
There is no doubt that those supporting the bill did so with the best of intentions. Many of them have seen loved ones die painful deaths, and have felt immense frustration at their inability to do anything but watch.
Colleen Hartland, the Greens Legislative Councillor and bill's sponsor, spoke in parliament about the 'intolerable pain and suffering' that confronts some terminally ill patients whose only choice at present is to refuse further medical intervention. It is human nature to wish not to see someone in pain, and moreover to seek to alleviate that pain wherever possible.
Yet few would argue that pain alone justifies euthanasia. And if we remove pain from the equation, the arguments in favour of euthanasia become much weaker. Instead of encouraging humane responses to suffering, these arguments become assertions about free will and the unpalatable burdens endured by the very sick and those who care for them.
More than anything, the debates are couched in the language of the desire for a 'death with dignity', the catchphrase of euthanasia supporters.
But if it is death with dignity that is sought, where is the indignity? Is it the indignity of a person trying clumsily to end their own life, where a less messy option might be available? Or is it the indignity simply of being terribly sick, of being incontinent, of having one's family see a person as a shadow of their former selves?
Is it undignified simply to be sick? Hard as it is, I can for a minute imagine myself, or indeed my parents or spouse, being terminally ill, filled with tubes, incontinent, unable to speak. That would be extremely sad, I might well feel undignified, but would I lose my dignity?
Of greatest concern was the broader message the passage of the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill would have signalled. The bill embarked on a pronounced shift. The 'sanctity of life versus quality of life' choice can be rephrased: do we protect life, or protect only those lives deemed worthy of protection?
The problem with shifting from the former to the latter is that once that step is taken, it cannot logically stop with terminally ill patients. Why should it? Why not make euthanasia available to those suffering extraordinary and unrelievable