Mr ABBOTT (1.30 p.m.) —I would be distressed if this and other parliaments are to spend too much time debating this matter over the next few years. Surely we have better things to do with ourselves as a nation than to consider ways of making killing legal.

  We have to get this straight: euthanasia is not about the right to die; it is about the right to kill. Euthanasia is not about turning off life support systems—something which is perfectly legal at the present time. Euthanasia is about allowing doctors to inject patients in ways that will kill them.

  It is perfectly reasonable not to keep alive people who would otherwise be dead. But it is perfectly unreasonable to kill people who would otherwise be alive. It seems to me that this push for euthanasia could easily be characterised as the ultimate act of economic rationalism—an insensate desire to put a price on human life and to say that human lives can be ended when treatment becomes too expensive.

  The end of life is always tragic. Even those who die peacefully in their sleep leave behind grieving and desolate relatives. But those who die in pain in hospital die in a suffering which is exceeded often only by the suffering of their families—and that suffering cannot be soothed by any drug.

  The proponents of euthanasia say that it offers a painless way out. But we have to ask ourselves: whose pain are we really trying to ease? Is it the pain of the patient, who is already on pain relieving drugs? Is it the pain of the relatives, which no drug can reduce? Is it the pain of a patient, who is probably already on heavy doses of morphine and other pain killing drugs? Or is it the pain of the relatives, whose pain can only end when the patient dies?

  Supporters of euthanasia usually cite some personal experience to justify their attitude. I can understand this because there is nothing more sapping, more miserable, more heart rending than watching a loved one die. There is nothing more likely to reduce someone to a rage of impotence than to watch someone who is close die. To see a strong man reduced to a dribbling, moaning husk is the most tragic thing that anyone can endure; it is a tragedy. And yet since when has killing people been a way out of human tragedy?

  I can understand their position because at this very moment my own grandfather is in a nursing home. He cannot speak. He will not eat. He is strapped into a chair. His days are a torment to him and an agony to his family. And yet I assert the principle that human beings are not dogs to be put down as soon as they begin to suffer. I refuse to genuflect to any public opinion which says that euthanasia is the easy way out. I refuse to genuflect to an uninformed public opinion that is sometimes only too ready to take the soft option.

  In the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory we have laws or proposed laws to validate euthanasia in some shape or form. What these laws are doing is saying that human life can be traded away. We have to understand what they are doing: they are saying that we can trade away human life. We cannot trade away—according to many people in this chamber—our sick leave or our family leave. But, according to these laws, we can trade away human life—and what a perverse moral universe we live in, if this is so.

  This legislation in the Northern Territory and the proposed legislation in the ACT are giving doctors the power to end human life. If we cannot trust bosses to be fair to their employees, if we cannot trust the police to do the right thing by the people they arrest, if we cannot trust politicians to tell the truth, how can we trust doctors to do the right thing in all circumstances and in every way in a matter like this?

  I have the greatest respect for the medical profession. But, if the medical profession cannot be entirely trusted in the small matter of money—not to overservice, not to rip off Medicare—how can we entirely trust them in the greatest matter of all: the right to end human life itself?

  My friend and colleague the member for McPherson (Mr Bradford) mentioned the example of Germany in the 1930s. I believe that there is a vast moral gulf which separates modern Australia from Nazi Germany. But can we be so sure that, under pressure over time, we will not slide down the same slippery slope. We only have to look at the abortion situation in this country. When abortion was in effect made legal, it was supposed to happen only when the physical or mental health of the mother was threatened; yet we all know—let us not fool ourselves—that there is now abortion on demand in this country. Something that was supposed to happen only in rare circumstances is now happening to the extent of 80,000 abortions a year in Australia.

   I would like to quote from a letter written by the Voluntary Euthanasia Society; I am not quoting from a prejudiced source. This letter cited an official survey of deaths involving medical decisions at the end of life in the Netherlands that was undertaken for that country's Remmelink Commission. The letter states:

  In brief, the study found that about 38% of all deaths, or just under 49,000 cases in 1990, involved MDELs [medical decisions at the end of life]. Of these . . . 22,500 involved a decision to withhold or withdraw treatment that could have prolonged life and another 22,500 involved giving pain-relieving drugs such as morphine in such doses that the patient's life might have been shortened. Neither of these categories can be classified as euthanasia. They are part of normal medical practice occurring every day in Australia and other civilised countries.

They are absolutely correct. The letter goes on:

  This leaves about 400 cases a year in The Netherlands of assisted suicide (all of which are obviously with consent), 2,300 cases of euthanasia "following explicit and persistent request" (which, incidentally, represent only a third of the requests that are made), and 1,000 cases of "life-terminating acts without explicit and voluntary request".

We have 326 homicides a year in Australia. We have 580 AIDS deaths a year in Australia. Holland, a country of roughly Australia's size, now has 1,000 cases of medical killing. That is the spectre that faces Australia if legislation such as that passed in the Northern Territory and proposed for the ACT go ahead. I would like to quote from another article. In it, the authors of the Remmelink study posed this rhetorical question:

But is it not true that once one accepts (voluntary) euthanasia and assisted suicide, the principle of universalisability forces one to accept termination of life without explicit request, at least in some circumstances as well? In our view, the answer to this question must be affirmative."

In other words, the people who have examined the Dutch experience and who support the Dutch practice are saying that we will soon have involuntary euthanasia, if that is the path down which we go. I would like to quote from a survey conducted at Flinders University:

The survey revealed that 19 per cent of doctors and nurses had taken active steps to bring about the death of a patient. Of this group of euthanasia practising doctors, 49 per cent of them had never received a request from a patient to take such active steps.

In other words, 10 per cent of medical personnel in this country have engaged in involuntary euthanasia even when it is illegal. What kind of floodgates might we open if we make this legal?

   This in the end is about what kind of Australia we want: do we want an Australia celebrated for its way of life or an Australia that is celebrated for its way of death? Do we want our country to be about finding better ways to live or do we want ourselves to be about finding better ways to die? Pain, suffering and death are the ultimate mysteries of life. We should leave those mysteries in God's hands where they belong and resist the ultimate human conceit of trying to play God ourselves.