Letters
Ethics
Volume 216 - Issue 4

Participating doctors' perspectives on the regulation of voluntary assisted dying in Victoria: a qualitative study

Authors:  Lindy Willmott, Ben P White and Marcus Sellars

Med J Aust 2022; 216 (4): 209-209. || doi: 10.5694/mja2.51415
Published online: 7 March 2022

In reply

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In reply: We thank Harris and Cigolini for their comments1 on our article.2 We take issue with a number of assertions made, but have the word count to comment only on their point about evidence. We agree with their statement that an evidence base is needed to support legalisation of voluntary assisted dying (VAD). Indeed, we have publicly called for law reform in this area to be evidence based.3

However, as academics immersed in the reform process over recent years, we dispute the assertions that evidence does not exist to support reform, and that there has not been engagement with this literature during the reform process in Australian states.

On the first point, there are now decades of literature from around the world reporting on how VAD regimes have operated in practice. For example, a comprehensive review of literature published internationally, concluded: “In no jurisdiction was there evidence that vulnerable patients have been receiving euthanasia or physician‐assisted suicide at rates higher than those in the general population.”4 This is further illustrated by the mandated data collected in Oregon (where legislation has been in place for more than 20 years) that show that people receiving assistance to die tend to be white, male and have some kind of tertiary education.5

Second, evidence (both internationally and emerging from Victoria2,6) has indeed been relied upon by bodies in Australia charged with reviewing the law, including Parliamentary committees, advisory and expert panels and, most recently, the Queensland Law Reform Commission. As witnessed in the recent parliamentary debate in Queensland which resulted in the enactment of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2021 (Qld) by a large majority (61 to 30), our members of parliament are also increasingly engaging with evidence. Assessing available evidence, five Australian states have now concluded it is possible to have safe VAD legislation that provides terminally ill patients with choice at the end of life.

 

Authors

  • Lindy Willmott1
  • Ben P White1
  • Marcus Sellars2
  • 1. Australian Centre for Health Law Research, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD
  • 2. Australian National University, Canberra, ACT

Correspondence: l.willmott@qut.edu.au

Competing interests

Lindy Willmott and Ben White have received grants from the Victorian and Western Australian governments to design and provide training to practitioners involved in VAD. Ben White has also received an ARC Future Fellowship that relates to the regulation of VAD.

Acknowledgements

We received a small amount of funding from the Queensland University of Technology to prepare the original manuscript (to which a letter to the editor and this response relate). The funding source enabled us to employ a senior research assistant to undertake interviews.

References

Linked content

  • MJA Research: Participating doctors’ perspectives on the regulation of voluntary assisted dying in Victoria: a qualitative study

  • MJA Editorial: Update on voluntary assisted dying in Australia

  • MJA Letter: Participating doctors' perspectives on the regulation of voluntary assisted dying in Victoria: a qualitative study

  • MJA Letter: In reply

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