A disability support service and advocacy group has expressed fear the ACT's proposed voluntary assisted dying bill does not meaningfully exclude disability.
Advocacy for Inclusion believes the bill widens the eligibility for voluntary assisted dying beyond other Australian jurisdictions as it does not include an expected time frame for a death. In all other states a person must have six to 12 months to live to be eligible.
Advocacy for Inclusion head of policy Craig Wallace said while the territory government's proposed legislation excluded disability as a reason for voluntary assisted dying this did go far enough and the removal of a requirement for a time frame to death exacerbated this.
Under the ACT's legislation, a person will be able to access voluntary assisted dying if they have an illness that is advanced, progressive and expected to cause death. A person must be "suffering intolerably" and have decision-making capacity.
"The ACT does have a requirement on paper that excludes disability from voluntary assisted dying but if you take the time frame requirement away there is nearly nothing that distinguishes the meaning of disability within the ACT Discrimination Act which is cited within the draft bill from the eligible conditions that might be brought into scope for voluntary assisted dying," Mr Wallace said.
"All of these things in the real world mean some level of real or anticipated suffering and most of them are not treatable and most of them shorten the lifespan over time and we would argue the bill, as it stands, does not in any meaningful way exclude disability from being eligible for voluntary assisted dying.
"My disability would shorten my lifespan but is it an illness I would want to address by assisting dying. No, but there were times when that disability might have been intolerable to me and had that legislation been present I might have sought voluntary assisted dying and I would not be here giving evidence today."
Advocacy for Inclusion has called for the bill to be "substantially amended" or rejected by the Assembly.
'Facilitated conversations'
The ACT's proposed voluntary assisted dying legislation is being examined in public hearings this week, with four days of hearings set to take place. There was a full day of hearings on Monday.
A group representing carers called on the government to introduce greater provisions to support carers as part of their evidence on Monday afternoon.
Carers ACT chief executive Lisa Kelly said the organisation wanted a provision to enable a facilitated conversation to happen between a carer and the person who is dying before their death.
"What we're looking for is a provision to enable facilitated conversations to happen between the carer and the person who's dying prior to that death so that both people have had a chance to express their view on what's happening to have heard each other," she said.
"Ideally to have come to a resolution together ... that this is the desire this person has and we've come to peace with that."
Ms Kelly said there was a lot of discussion around coercion in voluntary assisted dying and this prevented conversations from occurring.
"Facilitating good relationship discussions isn't coercion. We've still got enough protections in that act that the person who wants to die is the person who's making that statement. That we've got professionals and health professionals involved along the way who have the skill to discern whether or not someone is being forced," she said.
"I guess I'd also say that are we going to cut out 99.9 per cent of carers because we might have a case of coercion at one point."
'Narrow understanding'
Christian leaders have expressed concern at the conscientious objection provisions in the bill.
The ACT's bill says health professionals and providers do not need to provide voluntary assisted dying services if there are against it but they are not allowed to hinder access to voluntary assisted dying and need to refer them elsewhere.
A facility could face a fine of up to $81,000 in the most extreme circumstance.
Canberra Catholic Archbishop Christopher Prowse said the ACT bill had a "narrow understanding" of conscientious objection.
"It does seem to say certain institutions because of their ethos may not agree with this but then, on the other hand, there's the obligation to defer or refer the person to other people that may be more sympathetic to accessing that," he said.
"Even that to our Catholic point-of-view is not acceptable.
"We've talked about formal and informal or direct or indirect cooperation but we describe this as highly mistaken or even using the word evil, which is a word that we would move towards in regards to euthanasia.
"So for a Catholic institution to direct or participate or in any shape or form cooperate to us is unacceptable."
