Currently before the NSW Parliament is a significant bill designed to restore the ability of faith-based aged care facilities to opt out of providing assisted dying services. Assisted suicide has been legal in New South Wales since 2022, and the amendment by Susan Carter MCL attempts to roll back the law by strengthening conscientious objections protections.
If passed, the amendment would protect faith-based aged care facilities from their current obligation to allow voluntary assisted dying services on their premises. In her Second Reading speech, Susan Carter said:
“The bill ensures that faith-based aged-care facilities are treated no differently from faith-based hospitals. For those families who, together with their ageing parent or grandparent, chose an environment based on faith that deeply respects the value of life, they want to know that the idea of the hastened death of their loved one is not part of the culture. This bill will assuage that anxiety and allow faith-based aged‑care facilities to fulfil their unique mission.”
Archbishop Anthony Fisher has been promoting the amendment, writing in his newsletter that:
Currently, the law requires our aged care homes to open their doors to kill teams to come in and give lethal doses to residents, even though this is contrary to the ethos of compassionate care upon which these facilities are founded. Pro-death activists are doing the rounds in media today, trying to frame this as an issue of taking choice away from aged care residents. But the truth is that so many people choose faith-based aged care because of our respect for every human life, and our assurance that we will care for each person until their natural death.
We know that our ethic of care is why so many residents and their families continually choose faith-based facilities. Our vulnerable elderly deserve the choice to live out their final days in a safe place where they know that euthanasia will never, ever be part of the conversation.
The Family First party has also given its support to the bill. Lyle Shelton wrote:
“Since euthanasia was legalised less than two years ago, 398 people have already died in just the first seven months of the scheme’s operation. The number will only have grown. Yet our law goes further than any other state in coercing religious facilities to participate in this culture of death. Even Victoria does not force Catholic or other faith-based homes to permit euthanasia on site.”
HOW YOU CAN HELP
NEW SOUTH WALES RESIDENTS
New South Wales residents are encouraged to write to their Legislative Council members asking them to vote in favour of the bill. Helpful information, including email addresses and a writing guide, can be found at this link.