Legalized Killing Kills Palliative Care

Here’s exactly what happens wherever assisted suicide or euthanasia are legalized – the palliative care doctors move on, knowing very well that the medical system will diminish palliative care services knowing that killing people is instead the pain-managing answer.

Doctor warns against legalizing euthanasia: Experiment failed in Australia

Legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide in Quebec would probably end up hurting palliative medical services in the province, warned an Australian physician who has studied the impact of his country's experiment with mercy-killing legislation.

Mark Boughey, director of palliative medicine at St. Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne, recalled the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act, which came into force in Australia's Northern Territory on July 1, 1996. (The law was nullified a year later by the federal parliament, but there is renewed talk of adopting similar legislation.)

Boughey said the law led to an exodus of health professionals specializing in palliative care from the Northern Territory. What's more, many aboriginals -whose culture is against mercy killing -grew distrustful of the medical establishment, and the number of routine childhood vaccinations dropped. more