Huge moment for the decency and compassion of those staring down the barrel of certain death. I've been following the movement for over a decade and it's been a long journey but it's finally here. People need to be given a humane option and the right to choose their own death rather than being forced to die a slow, painful, horrible death and leave their families with the memory of the shell of their former self.
I hope you implement it better than we did in Canada. It's basically a disgusting rubber stamp process and people are encouraged to off themselves because it's a net gain for the system to no longer take care of them.
It seems relatively sane:
Like other states, approval in NSW is a two-doctor process.
An applicant's illness or medical condition must be expected to cause death within six months, or 12 months for a person with a neurodegenerative disease, for them to be eligible.
Holy shit that's even more restrictive than Queensland's. Here it's 12 months for any disease. Which is already far too short a timeline for some diseases, particularly neurodegenerative ones.
I looked into the legislation and it seems to specifically disallow VAD for these cases that you're talking about (minor edits made for brevity):
A person is not eligible for access to voluntary assisted dying merely because the person has a disability, or dementia, or a mental health impairment.
To avoid doubt, if a person permanently loses decision-making capacity in relation to voluntary assisted dying at any time during the request and assessment process the person ceases to be eligible.
Yeah I knew it was written in such a way that would effectively mean dementia is completely ineligible for VAD. Disappointing to see it done as explicitly as that, though.
I understand that there are issues regarding receiving informed consent from someone suffering from e.g., late stage dementia. I wish we could see some kind of process that people are able to undertake before they get to this stage that would allow them to be approved for VAD then to be acted on later.
It's a huge step in the right direction. We need to keep being aware of the issue, discuss it with the people around us in order to create further acceptance. Maybe one day we will see thoughtful legislation expand on this.
To short a time line... or too long?
Too short by far. Some neurodegenerative diseases can leave their victims in a state where they don’t even know who they are for over a decade. Neither they nor their family should have to suffer through that.
Your example sounds like two parties that both get what they want.
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