US Doctors Warn Tasmanian Bill Too Strict

US doctors warn Tasmanian bill too strict, Jul. 31, 2009.

DOCTORS in the United States have warned the safeguards in a Tasmanian Bill to legalise euthanasia may be too strict.

Greens leader Nick McKim, who initiated the Bill, is on a privately funded trip to the state of Oregon, which legalised euthanasia in 1997.

He said discussions with doctors and a Catholic hospital administrator in Oregon confirmed their system was working safely and effectively.

"The state epidemiologist for the Department of Health and Human Service in Oregon just published a new paper on the scheme and concluded the data demonstrates that there has been no coercion of vulnerable people into participating in the scheme," Mr McKim said.

He said doctors had told him his Bill, to be debated in the Tasmanian Parliament before the end of the year, may be too restrictive to be used by all terminally ill people who want to die.

But Mr McKim said he would not be moving to weaken the safeguards in his Bill.

"I made a decision to put as many safeguards as thought was reasonably possible and my Bill is safeguarded to a larger extent than the Oregon system. I am encouraged by the fact that a situation less safeguarded than mine still does not result in vulnerable people being coerced into participating in euthanasia."

The main difference is that Mr McKim's Bill requires a mandatory psychological assessment, whereas Oregon law only requires the assessment of a doctor.

In Oregon, euthanasia medication can only be administered by the patient, a situation that Mr McKim said discriminated against the physically disabled who were unable to take medication themselves.

He said there was overwhelming community support for the legislation.

"Everyone from taxi drivers to qualified medical professionals have been in support of this reform," he said.

By Michael Stedman, The Mercury