Voluntary Euthanasia Debate Hits WA Parliament

A Western Australian Greens MP has introduced a private member's bill that will legalise voluntary euthanasia for those aged 21 and older.

Today Robbin Chapple, MLC for the mining and pastoral region, introduced the Voluntary Euthanasia Bill 2010 into the Legislative Council, which called for "immunity from criminal prosecution and civil ramifications to a person who assists a suffering terminally ill patient to die" in accordance the bill.

The bill allows those 21 years and over, who have a terminal illness that will cause death within two years and are experiencing considerable pain and suffering, to request euthanasia.

The request must be witnessed by two independent and unrelated people. There is also a waiting period of 14 days before the patient can make the request again, this time in front of three medical practitioners of five or more years of experience, before it can be granted.

Mr Chapple told Parliament he had five reasons for wanting such a contentious bill, the most important being a personal one.

"More than twenty five years ago, my mother was diagnosed as terminally ill here in Perth," he said in a speech to Parliament.

"For five or six weeks, she lay in a hospital bed waiting to die, wanting to die and she expressed to me on a number of occasions her personal desire and wish for an end to her suffering.

"At the end of each day she would say goodbye, with the hope that she could will herself to end it all.  When I’d arrive the next day, she’d have tears in her eyes because of her own failure to will herself to depart."