3 Jul 2017, 6:47 a.m.<\/p>\n
He's a controversial US physician touring Australia to argue the case against voluntary euthanasia. <\/p>\n
US physician William Toffler: \"Perhaps you should have veterinarians, who have training and skill in giving overdoses to living things, living animals.\" <\/p>\n
RELATED:Central Victorian deaths highlight a desire for voluntary assisted dying to be among options for end of life planning <\/p>\n
He's a controversial US physician touring Australia to argue the case against voluntary euthanasia. <\/p>\n
But while William Toffler hopes assisted dying is never legalised here, if it is, he wants vets to be responsible for treating terminally ill patients who wish to die not their doctors. <\/p>\n
In a parliamentary briefing this week, Dr Toffler urged Victorian MPs not to make the same mistake as his home state of Oregon, where physician assisted suicide has been legal for two decades. <\/p>\n
However, if enough MPs vote in favour of reform when the matter is debated at Spring Street this year, his view is that doctors should have nothing to do with the law because it goes against their fundamental obligation to heal people. <\/p>\n
\"Perhaps you should have veterinarians, who have training and skill in giving overdoses to living things, living animals,\" he told his audience. <\/p>\n
\"I'm not recommending this, don't misquote me, but at least you'd keep the House of Medicine from an apparent conflict of interest, and you'd have trust in your doctors.\" <\/p>\n
Dr Toffler is a medical physician, a professor at the Oregon Health and Science University, and a member of the Catholic Medical Association in the US, whose mission is to uphold \"the principles of the Catholic faith in the science and practice of medicine.\" <\/p>\n
But he's also a controversial figure, whose views on issues such as abortion (which he is against), contraception (which he doesn't prescribe because of his anti-abortion stance), and euthanasia are seen as too extreme by some. <\/p>\n
Dr Toffler's speaking tour around Australia sponsored by Right to Life is the latest sign of the deeply divisive debate the Andrews government faces as it seeks to legalise assisted dying in Victoria. <\/p>\n
While the government's legislation is still being drafted, the proposed model is expected to limit access to people who have a incurable disease and face intolerable pain at the end of their life, and still have the decision making capacity to ask their doctor to prescribe a lethal pill. <\/p>\n
However, Dr Toffler said that even the term assisted \"dying\" was a euphemism, when boiled down: \"It's assisted suicide.\" <\/p>\n
\"If it was assisted dying I'd be in favour of it, because choice, dignity in dying, or options at the end of life are good things. But I'm not in favour of empowering doctors to give massive overdoses to people so they can kill themselves,\" he told Fairfax Media. <\/p>\n
Dr Toffler's parliamentary briefing was organised by Liberal upper house MP Inga Peulich, and attendees included the Sex Party's Fiona Patten, Liberal MPs David Southwick, Robert Clark, Neale Burgess, and Labor backbencher Lizzie Blandthorn. <\/p>\n
During his speech, he warned that there were several \"myths\" that proponents of assisted dying would often push including the view that physician-assisted death was about alleviating intolerable suffering and pain for people with terminal illness. <\/p>\n
\"In my 40 years [in the medical profession] I am yet to see somebody who we can't get on top of the pain,\" he said. <\/p>\n
Asked about his presentation, MPs had conflicting views. Sex Party MP Fiona Patten, who was part of the End-of-Life choices committee that recommended an assisted dying regime, said she was baffled by Dr Toffler's suggestion that vets should be used to treat terminally ill patients. <\/p>\n
\"For a doctor he made the curious observations that you couldn't trust the evidence nor could you trust the doctors,\" she said. <\/p>\n
\"There is no doubt that his religious beliefs have influenced his position on physician assisted dying yet he warned that anyone who said that was a bigot. Somehow stating that fact is demeaning his beliefs!\" <\/p>\n
However Ms Peulich, who was also part of the End-of-Life Choices committee but did not support its main recommendation for assisted dying, said Dr Toffler's arguments were \"based on reason and evidence\". <\/p>\n
- The Age <\/p>\n
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Assisted dying: Vets should assist, not doctors, says anti-euthanasia campaigner - Bendigo Advertiser<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 3 Jul 2017, 6:47 a.m. He's a controversial US physician touring Australia to argue the case against voluntary euthanasia. Continue reading