ABC News reports on new legal activity on the euthanasia front in South Australia. Labor MP Steph Key will now try to amend an existing law instead of adopting a what she calls a “stand-alone bill” on the issue. Last year a similar bill was narrowly defeated (11 votes to 9).
She will try this time to amend the existing “Consent to Medical Treatment and Palliative Care Act”. She is stated to have said: “I’ve been regularly raising the issue of voluntary euthanasia in parliament over the past few years and it seemed to me that there needs to be some reform in the whole area in people’s end-of-life arrangements and so voluntary euthanasia is just one of those”.
Greens MLC Mark Parnell is co-introducing the bid, because he believes “Voluntary euthanasia will become law in South Australia. I’m hoping it will be this time, but if for some reason it’s not successful then, whether it’s Steph, me, Duncan, Geoff or anyone else, it will be back, because you cannot ignore what 80 per cent of the people of South Australia say they want”.
Several MP’s (Liberal MP Duncan McFethridge and independent MP Geoff Brock) have joined in support of this initiative.