Category Archives: Euthanasia

That phrase tends to be associated with politicians paying tribute to other politicians (or, in Charles Haughey's case, paying tribute to himself), but there can be no doubt that Vicky Phelan has indeed done her State some service.

Her honourable refusal to take a cheque and sign a gagging order exposed the State CervicalCheck scandal, which led to scores of other cases being discovered and forced an apology from the Taoiseach in the Dil.

That, in itself, is more than any of us will ever achieve in our lifetime but following her comments in a newspaper interview on Sunday, she may well have performed yet another service for her country.

Discussing her life expectancy, and how her hopes for another five years may be in vain, she opened up about her views on euthanasia. As the reluctant campaigner put it: "I would be pro-euthanasia, definitely. I would hate to be in a position where I was in a lot of pain, or lingering, as can happen a lot, that people are waiting four or five days for somebody to die. It's terrible for the patient. It's terrible for the family having to sit and watch their loved one dying in pain. It's not a nice sight to see people when they are dying."

Irish society has come a long way in the last decade. The will of the people was overwhelming in their vote supporting both gay marriage and repealing the Eighth Amendment, yet when it comes to the one issue which will affect us all - the manner of our death - the topic of euthanasia remains one of the last great taboos in polite society.

For many Irish people, the issue of euthanasia was really brought home in 2013 when MS sufferer Marie Fleming took an unsuccessful Supreme Court action to allow her to die in a manner of her own choosing, without worrying if her partner, Tom Curran, would face subsequent prosecution for assisting her.

Similarly, Dublin woman Gail O'Rorke was prosecuted for, although ultimately found not guilty, of helping a friend die.

As the law stands, not only is it illegal to assist someone dying in this jurisdiction, even travelling with someone to somewhere such as the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland is also a criminal offence.

That is the dilemma which Ms Phelan will eventually face, and it's one which is confronted by many Irish citizens on a daily basis.

When she said that "if you tell family members and you bring them with you, are they going to be prosecuted when they come back to Ireland for assisting you?", she was acknowledging that the State has a history of impeding and prosecuting those who help a loved one travel to end their suffering.

Whether we like it or not, euthanasia is going to be the next cultural battleground in this country. We have an ageing population and modern medicine can now keep people alive for far longer than ever before.

But being kept alive isn't the same as living and there is something almost monstrously cruel about forcing someone whose body has become their greatest enemy to endure a final few months or even years of undignified agony and fear.

Contrary to traditional teachings, there is no dignity in suffering, and anyone who has ever watched a loved one slowly shrivel as their body is ravaged by disease and racked with pain will be forgiven for feeling scorn towards those who say there is.

That is not to underplay the incredible work done in Irish hospices - the often forgotten arm of the health service. Staff in these establishments do genuinely humbling work for a pittance. As someone who has spent time in three different hospices with loved ones over the last few years, it was impossible not to be struck by the professionalism and, most importantly, the kindness of the staff.

They are truly inspirational people who are owed a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.

John Halligan has been fighting a lonely battle in his efforts to get appropriate legislation framed on the issue.

His Private Members Bill fell with the last Dil in 2016, but he remains hopeful that it will be heard in the next Dil. It will be interesting to see how much progress he makes on the issue because politicians tend to run a mile from such a thorny topic - a luxury denied to those who are in pain today.

Currently, euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal in six countries and six states in America. Last month, politicians in New Zealand voted to adopt the End Of Life Choice Bill, which will now go to a referendum in 2020, to be held at the same time as their general election. The tide is turning.

There are two main arguments against euthanasia: one is religious and the other practical. The religious argument is easy to dismiss if you are not actually religious; after all, everyone must choose their own path and nobody is suggesting that loosening the euthanasia laws will make it mandatory.

But many of the most vociferous anti-euthanasia campaigners are disabled people worried that they will come under pressure to die. That may not be the case, but it would be wrong for pro-euthanasia advocates to simply dismiss their fears.

It is also true that there have been numerous cases in recent years which have stretched the concept to near-breaking point. The choice of deaf Belgian twins, Eddie and Marc Verbessem (45), to be euthanised when they started to go blind raised many uncomfortable questions, particularly as their family pleaded with them to change their minds.

Numerous prisoners serving life sentences with no possibility of parole in Belgium, and indeed Australia, have petitioned the courts to be euthanised on the grounds that serving the rest of their days behind bars is a form of 'unendurable torture'.

None of those cases has been successful so far but we should all be worried about ushering in the death penalty by any other name.

Similarly, the Dutch model, which takes severe depression into account, is another area of concern for even the most ardent right-to-die supporters.

But nobody should expect such a profound issue to be easy and, not for the first time in this country, it seems the people are ahead of the politicians.

The most recent Amarach poll saw 63pc of the population in favour of euthanasia - remarkably close to the 64.5pc who voted for abortion.

This issue is, in many ways, the last great civil rights battle in this country - it's one which a growing number of citizens will face.

It's also an issue which won't go away and our demographic pattern will ensure that the longer it's kicked down the road, the bigger a problem it will become.

We didn't listen to Marie Fleming and her impassioned pleas for some dignity.

Maybe we'll listen to Vicky Phelan.

Irish Independent

Read more from the original source:

Ian O'Doherty: 'Euthanasia will be next big cultural battleground - and it's time we faced that uncomfortable reality' - Independent.ie

Western secular culture is a kind of hothouse growth, Christopher Dawson wrotean artificial culture that shelters us from the direct impact of reality. Neither birth nor death in secular societies occasions confrontation with ultimate realities. Rather, each brings us into closer dependence on the state and its bureaucracy so that every human need can be met by filling in the appropriate form. Evelyn Waughs Love Among the Ruins: A Romance of the Near Future dramatizes this sheltering. In this novella, junior sub-official Miles Plastic does clerical work for the Department of Euthanasia in a dystopian state. Plastic, whose surname epitomizes artificiality and malleability, ensures that those in line for a happy death do not press ahead of their turn, and adjusts the television set for their amusement. Although a faint whiff of cyanide sometimes gave a hint of the mysteries beyond, Plastic is content to empty the waste basket and brew tea for the patients.

Because the services offered by the Department of Euthanasia are essential, Plastic has no feast on Santa Claus Day (December 25). After work he walks to the hospital to visit his lover Clara, who is with child, and finds the hall porter . . . engrossed in the television, which was performing an old obscure folk play which past generations had performed on Santa Claus Day, and was now revived and revised as a matter of historical interest. The porters interest, Plastic supposes, is professional, for the show dealt with maternity services before the days of Welfare. The porter cannot look away from the strange spectacle of an ox and an ass, an old man with a lantern, and a young mother. People here are always complaining, the porter says. They ought to realize what things were like before Progress.

The Nativity, the great fact of christology (Christ descended and passed through utter poverty in order to redeem) ghosts through the television screen. However, these hothouse inhabitants are haunted not by the mystery of Christs humility, but by Mary and Josephs woeful lack of medical conveniences. In the world of the novella, the Story of Christ has been shrunken and sanitized into a museum-like documentary. As Dawson wrote, a completely secularized culture is a world of make believe in which the figures of the cinema and the cartoon-strip appear more real than the figures of the Gospel.

Plastic moves through the hospitals bowels until he finds his beloved in a ward marked Experimental Surgery. There, he inquires after our childbut Clara tells him: that had to go (italics mine). She then says that Santa Claus Day marks the nativity of her new face; her former one, ruined with facial hair, has been replaced by a wonderful new substance, a sort of synthetic rubber that takes grease-paint perfectly. Claras plasticity is more real to her than the child (the that) which has been eliminated by a simple, state-proffered operation. Like a mother who has just given birth, she sits up in bed, joyful and proud, but Plastic cannot countenance the tight, slippery mask, which he experiences as quite inhuman. Instead, he stares at the bedside TV, where further characters had appeared in the obscure folk play: Food Production Workers apparently declare a sudden strike, for they leave their sheep in a frenzy at the bidding of some kind of shop-steward in fantastic dress, accompanied by an old, forgotten ditty: O tidings of comfort and joy.

Through Waughs artfulness, the Nativity has been made strange in Love Among the Ruins. The Russian formalist Viktor Shklovsky contended that the purpose of art is to lead us to a knowledge of a thing through the organ of sight instead of recognition. By enstranging objects and complicating form, the device of art makes perception long and laborious. Although the twenty-first-century West does not yet evince the extreme secularity of the dystopian society in Love Among the Ruins, Waugh helps us perceive how our own world, too, is unreal, and how in our day, too, the God who is Love has been relegated to the category of historical and cultural preservation. Waugh pairs Claras plastic joy with the tidings of comfort that break from the machine beside her. This juxtaposition brings Plastic to retch unobtrusively before he exits the surgery ward, baffled.

Waughs novella incubates us in a world that has abandoned God. Though the TV light extracts grace from the Christmas Story, Plastic and the porter watch with rare attention. They are arrested by the foreignness of Gods Incarnation, though they cannot put the fragmented pieces of the Story together. T. S. Eliot captures the disruptiveness of Christs coming in his poem Journey of the Magi. The narrator, one of the three kings, wonders whether he was led all that way for / Birth or Death?

Although he daily helps hasten the happy terminations of unwanted lives, Miles Plastic has been kept conveniently away from the mysteries beyond the door. His first real encounter with death comes through the surgical slaughter of his child. And it makes him miserable. Holy Mother State has anesthetized his consciousness against the pains of reality, but the death of our child on Christs birthday makes him long for another death. By the end of the novella, he has forged a desert in his imagination which he might call peace, a poor surrogate for the Prince of Peace. It's a desert that leaves him, like the Magi, ill at ease.

We inhabit a hothouse in many ways akin to that of Miles Plastic. Who among us can exit the hothouse and enter the enduring chill where the soul encounters the bitter agony and sublimity of Christ's birth? Who among us can craft a crche that will soil our artificiality with the ultimate reality? Who can arrest us until our unease passes into peace, until we dare call the Makers cave-set maternity wardlike his death on Fridaygood?

Joshua Hrenis Assistant Director of the Honors College atBelmontAbbey College and author ofThis Our Exile: Short Stories.

Photo by Eusebius@Commons via Creative Commons. Image cropped.

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Peace In a Plastic World | Joshua Hren - First Things

Posted December 01, 2019 09:07:19

In decades past, South Australia built a reputation as a leader on social reform.

It was the first state to give women the right to vote and stand for parliament, and under the leadership of Don Dunstan, was the first to decriminalise homosexual acts.

Some of the most public campaigns in recent times are for law change on a trio of thorny issues: the decriminalisation of sex work, abortion law reform, and voluntary euthanasia.

In an interesting turn of events, campaigners were hoping the election of a moderate Liberal State Government last year would help their cause, after years of failed attempts under the former Labor government.

On sex work, advocates got further than ever this year, at least until last fortnight when it was defeated in Parliament.

The Lower House which had never considered the issue before rejected the bill at the first opportunity.

Premier Steven Marshall had thrown his support behind the bill, saying it was an issue some other states had dealt with "decades and decades ago".

Deputy Premier and Attorney-General Vickie Chapman described the result of the vote as "disappointing".

"I feel for those sex workers in our community who will still be treated as second-class citizens, and will still be able to be prosecuted for their work," she said.

"With the failing of this bill, sex workers are now still left in a position where their safety is at risk."

But there were conservative Liberals who had a different view.

Liberal MLC Dennis Hood strongly opposed the bill.

"The left always seems to go for the most radical form of legislation that they possibly can," Mr Hood said.

"[It] was just beyond what I think most reasonable members would consider desirable for their electorates."

A group of socially progressive MPs across parties have been working together to advance all three social issues, and the sex work reform result threw up questions about whether abortion and euthanasia were also on shaky ground.

Next month, the state's Attorney-General Vickie Chapman will present a proposal for the full decriminalisation of abortion, and a parliamentary committee is currently looking at the issue of voluntary euthanasia.

Both issues are set to come before Parliament as a conscience vote, where MPs will not be bound to their party's position.

Advocates had expected the sex work vote to be close.

Several sources have told the ABC that at least one MP indicated support and then voted the other way.

SA Greens MLC Tammy Franks first introduced this year's bill to Parliament, and said Lower House MPs had a "much shallower level of understanding of the debate", because they had not been through the same extended parliamentary committee process as the Upper House.

She said other barriers were objections raised by councils and SA Police, the latter called for protections to prevent organised crime moving into the sex industry.

"We saw what is being called an unprecedented entry into the public sphere by the Police Commissioner Grant Stevens," Ms Franks said.

The staunchest opponents of the sex work bill could well oppose changes to abortion and euthanasia laws.

However, one member of Labor's left faction told the ABC it was unlikely that all MPs would split along the same lines.

They said they thought abortion law reform would have an easier path through Parliament, but feared euthanasia would be less likely to succeed than they had initially thought.

The vast majority of Labor's right faction, including Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas, voted against the sex work bill.

But it is unclear whether those MPs will view abortion and euthanasia bills as less extreme than the proposed model to decriminalise sex work.

Dennis Hood said it would come down to the specifics of any legislation.

"There is some reform in the legalisation of prostitution that even a fairly solid conservative like myself would look at and consider," he said.

"I don't think these things are set in stone except for the hard left, they'll always I think support social change."

Tammy Franks said the parliamentary battle over sex work was always going to be the hardest to win, and some MPs told her they didn't want to expend political capital on that issue.

"There were people who said 'Oh, look, I can't vote for sex work because I'm voting for abortion'," she said.

"Quite a few people are in that camp."

Topics:government-and-politics,politics-and-government,local-government,euthanasia,abortion,community-and-society,adelaide-5000,sa,australia

See the article here:

Could the failed bid for sex work decriminalisation in SA impact other social reforms? - ABC News

Debate has emerged as to whether euthanasia has a place in te ao Mori, with some saying it doesn't sit with the Mori worldview of death, and others saying whnau should have the choice.

A Taranaki urup. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin

The End of Life Choice Bill, which would allow people to end their lives if they have six months or less before they die, passed its third reading last week, with the public set to vote at a referendum next year.

Maata Wharehoka, from Parihaka, has been reviving traditional methods of death and burial, with her whnau-run business, Kahu Whakatere Tppaku.

She said that based on the knowledge of her whnau, there was a form of euthanasia in pre-colonial Mori society, which involved speeding up death for people who had become wholly dependent on others for their needs.

"They didn't have food and water, and they were put outside and regardless of the weather, that's where they were placed, now, what I do know, if they didn't die immediately they were then put out into wharemate, and the wharemate was built for them to die in."

She supports legalisation of euthanasia because it would help the wairua of the person dying, leave the world faster with less pain and suffering.

"I believe that we should never have to endure the pain that some people have to go through, that we should be able to choose a time to pass over."

Ngti Porou anglican priest, Reverend Chris Huriwai, who opposed the bill, said euthanasia went against the Mori worldview on death.

"When I hear conversations and krero around euthanasia, straight away my mind flicks to how we as Mori frame our tangihanga rituals, how we understand death, and fundamentally this idea of death as something that is unwanted, something that is an aitua or an accident or something unfortunate, and I wonder how that impacts on our tikanga when we start to express more agency in that space.

"So if a whnau or a person elects for that to take place, then how do we reconcile that with our acceptable practice and tikanga around tangihanga as it stands now."

The End of Life Choice Bill passed its third in Parliament last week and puts the issue to a referendum next year. Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas

He said that from what he had learned from the tohunga Papa Amster Reedy, euthanasia was foreign to the tikanga of Tairwhiti, but he said this might not necessarily be the case for Mori across the country.

"I think it's important we don't just call it all tikanga Mori, because tikanga Mori doesn't exist."

"We're diverse, we're fluid, we're not a homogenous group of people, so those conversations need to happen on levels smaller than tribal levels, so hap conversations need to happen and whnau conversations need to happen around what our accepted tikanga is."

Dame Iritana Twhiwhirangi agreed there was no one tikanga, and she supported the right for whnau to make a decision for themselves.

"Our people, from what I remember, made the decision together. They didn't rely on outside determinations for them and together that was their tikanga, that's what they focused on, they made their decisions and I support that."

New Zealand Nurses Organisation kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku said Mori nurses were polarised on the issue, but agree that it should be up to whnau Mori.

Mori nurses were looking to set up hui at different marae after Christmas, where Mori could discuss what legalisation of euthanasia would mean for them and their whnau, similar to consultation that occured around changes to the Coronial Act.

Whangarei MP Shane Reti said during the third reading debate that he opposed the bill, both as as a doctor and a Mori.

Tmaki Makaurau MP Peeni Henare supported the bill Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller

He singled out many of the Mori Labour MPs who supported the bill, asking them what their "Mori heart' was saying.

Tmaki Makaurau MP Peeni Henare responded by saying that historically, Mori had ways of speeding up the process of death if a disease or sickness was incurable.

He said that to him, tikanga is mana motuhake - Mori being to make the decision which is right for them.

MP for Te Tai Hauuru Adrian Rurawhe said that the overwhelming majority of people in his electorate told him at eight public hui they did not want this bill.

"We talk about kaupapa Mori, terms that just roll of our tongue - manaakitanga, rangatiratanga, aroha - it even frames our international identity but will it frame what we want for our families in this bill, I say it will not, because it is fundamentally opposed to those kaupapa."

List MP Willie Jackson told Parliament that three high-profile Mori leaders, he had spoken with said "they were tired of hearing this was a violation of our culture".

"All were unanimous that in their view tikanga evolves, tikanga changes and there is no one tikanga," he said.

Read the original:

Is there tikanga around euthanasia? - RNZ

For the first time a majority of the Dutch population supports the idea of euthanasia for those who say theyre tired of life although they remain physically healthy, a survey shows.

In 2002 the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia as a form of painless escape for terminally ill patients with the emphasis on those experiencing hopeless and unbearable suffering.

The procedure remains tightly controlled. Two doctors are required to agree independently in each case that the legal conditions have been met. However, theres a growing debate about whether or not availability should be broadened to include those who feel their lives are at an end.

As a result, controversial new legislation is to be tabled in parliament by the centre-left party D66 early next year that would make euthanasia available to citizens over 75 who believe their lives are complete and who wish to have control over how and when they end.

The new representative survey by the national statistics agency will be good news for D66 because it shows clearly for the first time that public attitudes to euthanasia are changing, and that that change is very much in line with the partys proposed new guidelines.

They survey shows the same overwhelming support for euthanasia as before, with 87 per cent of the population favouring its availability in certain controlled circumstances, 8 per cent opposed to it in all circumstances and 5 per cent with no opinion.

In religious terms, the greatest support for the procedure at 98 per cent comes from those who describe themselves as non-religious, with the greatest opposition from Muslims and orthodox Protestants.

However, within those broad parameters theres been an important shift, with 55 per cent of those surveyed now of the view that euthanasia should be available in cases where people feel tired of life while being in good physical health. Thirty-two per cent remain opposed to this.

As regards other specific hard case situations, 80 per cent agreed with its provision in cases of advanced dementia where the wish had been made known in advance.

Seventy-five per cent were in favour for terminally ill children and people with severe mental disorders.

The lower age limit for assisted suicide is currently 12, and while a third of respondents said they believed the age should be lowered to include younger children in distress, roughly half said they felt age should play no role in the decision at all.

The survey confirms that although it remains controversial and some cases become high profile, euthanasia is still used infrequently. There were 6,126 deaths by euthanasia in 2018, amounting to 4 per cent of the people who died in the Netherlands last year.

Here is the original post:

Right to euthanasia for people tired of life supported by most Dutch - The Irish Times

The approval of the principle "right to die" is dangerously trending up.

In August, New Jersey became the seventh state to legalize assisted suicide. Euthanasia is now responsible for 4.5% of deaths in the Netherlands, with many of those including people who werent terminally ill.

These are old people who may have health problems, but none of them are life-threatening, bioethicist Scott Kim told CBS. They're old, they can't get around, their friends are dead and their children don't visit anymore. This kind of trend cries out for a discussion. Do we think their lives are still worthwhile?"

Assisted suicide is often conflated with euthanasia, which has different motives, but with the same results. Assisted suicide is usually defined as helping a person end their life. Euthanasia is essentially a nicer sounding version of assisted suicide. Amazingly, euthanasia has 73% of American support in a 2017 Gallup poll. This is downright horrifying.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia in bare-bone terms, is the practice of helping people kill themselves. The principle in favor of assisted suicide and euthanasia is known as right to die, that one is entitled to end their life.

Objectively, if one wants to deny themselves life sustaining treatment, I feel that is understandable. We didnt have these life sustaining devices until recently. Denying themselves life sustaining treatment is just letting life go through its intended course. The National Health Service distinguishes this from euthanasia. The BBC says The NHS says withdrawing life-sustaining treatment can be part of good palliative care and should not be confused with euthanasia.

But to me, you arent ending your life; youre letting life carry itself on which is very different from euthanasia or assisted suicide.

I have much sorrow for those who are terminally ill. However, that doesnt mean you should end your life.

Does one have the right to die? Well philosophically speaking, no. If you believe that people have the right to be born, then yes, one has the right to die. You have to be born to die. But since most believe the right to choose outweighs that, then the right to die isnt a philosophically consistent one.

People often forget how the practices of the right to die, euthanasia and assisted suicide are seen in the eyes of the society: murder. In the majority of states, the preservation of life is considered the biggest priority.

In terms of law, the Supreme Court has ruled that from FindLaw, the government's interest in preserving life and preventing intentional killing outweighed the patient's interest in the liberty to choose to die, regardless of the patient's condition.

Supreme Court Justise Neil Gorsuch once said, Once we open the door to excusing or justifying the intentional taking of life as 'necessary,' we introduce the real possibility that the lives of some persons (very possibly the weakest and most vulnerable among us) may be deemed less 'valuable,' and receive less protection from the law, than others."

The right to die forgets how special life really is.

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Opinion | Life is special, nobody has the right to end their own - The News Record

Posted November 23, 2019 09:19:26

As the voluntary assisted dying debate slowed to a pace too sluggish to even describe as a crawl this week, some Liberal MPs could only look on in helpless frustration.

"It'll be a really bad look on us now if this doesn't go through by Christmas," one said.

"Up until now I thought we had handled the VAD issue well," said another. "This could ruin all of that."

The pace of progress of a Government bill in Parliament would typically be little to no concern for the Opposition.

But the Government's bill, to legalise voluntary euthanasia for terminally ill patients, has proven to be anything but typical.

Now, some Liberals are worried they have taken ownership of an issue over which they have precious little control.

Opposition Leader Liza Harvey sought to assure both the public and Government this week that the bill would pass before the festive season, despite what have been criticised as stalling tactics of her Liberal colleague Nick Goiran.

"I spoke to Nick last week and made it quite clear that I and the WA community expect this legislation to be passed by the end of this parliamentary sitting," Ms Harvey told The Sunday Times last week.

On the evidence of this week, it would be a brave leader to offer any such guarantees.

MPs in the Upper House are now debating the bill line by line, a painstaking process at the best of times but all the more drawn out for an issue as divisive as this one.

The Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) bill has 184 clauses, but after more than 36 hours of debate just 13 of those have been passed.

At the current rate of progress, it would take 516 hours to get through the whole bill.

No one expects it to actually take that long or anywhere even close to that but the fact that each clause is taking nearly three hours on average demonstrates how prolonged the process has been.

And it has cast serious doubt about whether the Christmas timeframe the Liberal leadership has agreed to can realistically be met.

Just two weeks remain until the Upper House is due to rise for the year, with 15 additional hours of debate added for next week alone.

Extra sitting weeks remain a possibility, as do all-nighters.

The Government blames Mr Goiran, an Upper House Liberal MP and perhaps the bill's highest-profile opponent.

It accuses him of "disgraceful" and "undemocratic" conduct in moving hundreds of amendments and asking "repetitive" and "filibustering" questions about the bill.

But key Liberals have strongly defended Mr Goiran.

"We are talking about life and death," Upper House Liberal leader Peter Collier said.

"We have got to give this legislation the respect it deserves. It richly deserves forensic scrutiny."

Mr Goiran's conduct has clearly put plenty of noses out of joint, including those of assisted dying supporters and the broader community.

But for many Liberals the concern is less about Mr Goiran and more about the position in which they now find themselves.

Several MPs are deeply frustrated by Ms Harvey's assurances the bill would pass by Christmas.

They view the deadline as something invented by the Government for its own political purpose and are confused about why Ms Harvey went along with it.

They are also concerned Ms Harvey has little control over Mr Goiran who wields enormous power within the Liberal Party and is motivated by staunch beliefs and even less over the rest of the Upper House.

The fear is Ms Harvey has boxed herself into a position where the Liberals will be blamed if the bill is not passed by Christmas, and that such a failure would indicate a lack of control over her own party.

"It was a real f*** up," one senior Liberal said.

"We should never have yielded to the Premier's deadline."

Supporters and the Government have long argued that the bill needs to pass by Christmas to bring sick West Australians closer to having a choice to end their suffering.

But there will also be Liberals hoping for a final vote before the year ends, to avoid what they fear would be a major political problem.

Topics:state-parliament,states-and-territories,government-and-politics,liberals,euthanasia,perth-6000,wa

Read this article:

Voluntary assisted dying debate threatens to turn into a hot mess for the WA Liberals - ABC News

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich The Kent County Animal Shelter took in 678 cats and dogs during the month of October alone.

"We've been steadily increasing since July," said KCAS program supervisor Namiko Ota-Noveskey. "We can't really explain why that is."

On top of a high intake number, the shelter has also been working to bring down its euthanasia rate, which means there are more animals in the shelter at any given time.

"We are moving animals as quickly as we can, but we are struggling to maintain the overall health of a large number of animals," Ota-Noveskey said.

Read more: Kent County shelter euthanized most dogs and cats in Michigan during 2017

KCAS gained attention last year for having one of the highest euthanasia rates in the state during 2017. Ota-Noveskey, who was brought on in May of this year, said they are constantly working to reduce that rate.

She said the current live release rate for cats is nearly 80% and the live release rate for dogs is close to 70%.

A 90% live release rate is the requirement for shelters that are considered 'no-kill.'

With help from rescue groups and other shelters, KCAS has been able to transfer animals more frequently to keep up with intake. The shelter has also offered fee waivers on cats for months at a time. With dogs, Ota-Noveskey says the staff is doing more extensive behavior assessments to determine the best type of home for each pet.

The longer the animals stay at the shelter, though, the more prone they are to things like upper respiratory infections and stress, Ota-Noveskey said.

"We are doing what we can," she said. But, they need adopters.

Bissell Pet Foundation is hosting an Empty the Shelters event on Nov. 22 and 23 solely to help KCAS adopt out more animals.

"Shelter dogs are not damaged dogs," Ota-Noveskey said. "I am pretty certain you will find one you like, and they all need a home. A shelter is just a temporary place this cannot be a home."

Long term, Ota-Noveskey hopes the shelter can work with community members to understand why intake numbers continue to be so high.

"Are people losing housing? Are they not financially able to care for [their pet]? Are landlords still discriminating against certain breeds? There are some things I think we can address as a community," Ota-Noveskey said.

HOW TO HELP:

Click here to learn about volunteering at KCAS

Click here to learn about adopting from KCAS

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Kent Co. Animal Shelter is overflowing due to high intake numbers coupled with lower euthanasia rate - WZZM13.com

Of the 142 amendments still on the notice paper, only 53 are from Mr Goiran.

The rest a total of 89 are from other MPs and include 12 proposed by the government itself, including six announced by Health Minster Roger Cook just yesterday.

Just a few weeks ago, Premier Mark McGowan said Mr Goiran's behaviour was "disgraceful", accusing him of "just trying to wreck the bill with these ridiculous, endless amendments".

But if the government's bill was as pure as the driven snow, why did it need more amendments yesterday? And this doesn't include five the upper house has already agreed to, including a variation of one previously proposed by Labor MP Margaret Quirk in the lower house?

As 6PR's Gareth Parker pointed out on Twitter: "I know Nick Goiran is supposed to be public enemy no.1 with horns growing out of his forehead, but is anyone going to reflect on the fact the McGowan Government now WILL amend its supposedly unimpeachable VAD Bill in the Upper House?"

Before yesterday, the government's bill as it stood would have permitted any health practitioner to suggest euthanasia to a dying patient. That included optometrists, pharmacists, a podiatrist, a dental hygienist or a Chinese medicine practitioner.

Of the five amendments agreed to by the upper house on Tuesday, only one was from the government.

An amendment moved by Mr Goiran to ensure people in the regions had the same level of access to palliative care as those in Perth came close to passing, falling short by a hair-raising one vote.

Luckily for the government, Nationals MPs came to the rescue to oppose it.

Also under scrutiny are claims by the government that the Australian Medical Association is now supporting its euthanasia bill.

President Andrew Miller has not said his association supports the legislation.

"There's a range of things that the AMA suggested in amendments that the government are saying would be more appropriate to address in the guidelines or the implementation phase, so we'll have a look at that," Dr Miller said.

"The AMA hasn't pledged anything, what we've said is we're welcoming these amendments.

"We're not going to tell anyone how to vote, we're just saying we're hear to provide information, we're here to provide feedback from doctors on the ground and we want it to be safe for patients."

Far from a glowing endorsement of the bill from the profession who will be expected to implement it.

And while the government has introduced an amendment to reduce the number of people who can propose euthanasia, the change still falls short of Labor MP Tony Buti's proposal to bring the laws into line with Victoria's.

Dr Buti, a supporter of the bill, wanted the laws to prevent anyone proposing euthanasia to a sick patient, including doctors and nurses.

"I've spoken to Tony Buti and explained to him the amendments that go to the heart of his concerns. He's very pleased with the compromise that's been struck," Mr Cook said on Tuesday.

"He said that while he prefers his amendment, but in the event that that is not successful he's very satisfied with the actual compromise that's now been reached."

This would be astonishing, given Dr Buti proposed the change to protect people with disabilities and Aboriginal people considered vulnerable because of language or cultural differences.

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All this just goes to show the upper house still has its work cut out dealing with this legislation.

The state government's bill is complex, not perfectly understood even by the government itself, which is still discovering reasons it needs to be changed and some upper house MPs are waveringin their support.

Putting pressure on MPs by forcing it through by Christmas might make tactical sense for the government, which hasn't really been able to explain the rush, but it might make for bad legislation.

Let's pray the upper house takes its time to get the balance right.

Nathan is WAtoday's political reporter.

Originally posted here:

Reality check: Most changes to WA's assisted dying bill now not Goiran's - Sydney Morning Herald

The City of Long Beach may soon allow residents to have up to six pets in their homes, two more than it currently allows.

Gerardo Mouet, director of Long Beachs Parks, Recreation and Marine Department, stated in a Nov. 15 memo to the city manager that next month the city council will consider amending an ordinance to increase allowed pets from four to six and also regulate animals brought into the city for adoption.

The purpose of the amendments is to promote the Long Beach Animal Care Services (LBACS) Compassion Saves approach designed to minimize the number of animals euthanized, Mouet said.

According to the memo, LBACS already reduced the number of its animals euthanized by 82% between 2010 and 2018, dropping from 5,651 to 1,044. It also increased pet adoptions by 370% from 144 to 677 during that period.

Courtesy City of Long BeachA table from a Nov. 15 memo to the Long Beach city manager showing how Long Beach Animal Care Services (LBACS) reduced animal-euthanasia rates and increased adoptions between 2010 and 2018.

As recent as 2012, LBACS started seeing less animals coming into the shelter due to effective population-control efforts, Mouet said in the memo, adding that it reduced euthanasia rates with the help of a 2015 spay-and-neuter ordinance and partnering with adoption organizations.

Mouet further stated that city staff plans to work with spcaLA (the Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) which is housed in the same facility as LBACS in negotiating a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to maximize the effectiveness of LBACSs Compassion Saves approach.

That approach stems from an April 16 LBACS study session showing the positive impact of animal population-control efforts. The City had created a task force the previous October following results of a two-phased city-auditors report on LBACS completed last year. The City also hired a new LBACS manager, Staycee Dains, last February.

Along with deficiencies in LBACS operations, the audit noted that though they maintain separate leadership and identities, both LBACS and spcaLA are housed at the P.D. Pitchford Companion Animal Village in Long Beach, with a 55-year lease-back agreement expiring in 2053. LBACS leases part of the facility from spcaLA for its shelter operations and the City pays spcaLA 50% of the total facilitys operating expenses, according to the audit.

And though LBACSs live-release rates (LRR) of animals have increased, the audit found that the LRRs and impound improvements strained LBACSs resources and spread thin the shelters staff.

It also found deficiencies in LBACSs standard-operating procedures, resulting in inconsistent decision-making, conflicting shelter practices and changes implemented without proper direction and explanation.

No killThough Mouet said the three proposed steps are designed to aid LBACSs effectiveness in reducing euthanized animals, Dr. Patricia Turner of No Kill Long Beach, an advocacy group calling for no animal to be put down unless it has untreatable pain or illness, told the Signal Tribune that the steps are too limited.These actions dont go far enough, Turner said, adding that the real problem is LBACSs physical and operational proximity to spcaLA.

The MOU must establish LBACSs independence from spcaLA [] as its own entirely city-operated animal shelter and facility so that they can operate at scale to meet the needs of the people of Long Beach, she said.

Turner said that such a separation would allow LBACS to operate full-service adoption and foster programs and a robust volunteer program.Ideally, spcaLA would not be associated with the City of Long Beach, she said. They are on taxpayer land.

Turner also said that the MOU should require transparency by spcaLA about the outcome of animals under its care, such as how many it euthanizes or sends out to adoption, foster care or to other shelters.

That MOU is the most important thing, Turner said when comparing the three steps.

The step of limiting the number of animals brought into the city for adoption is a response to the general perception that spcaLA brings in animals from other places, Turner said, but noted that the memo doesnt specify that organization as the problem.

Nothing in this memo, in regards to animals being brought into Long Beach, mentions spcaLA, she said. It applies to anybody.

Turner said therefore a person who finds a kitten in Lakewood couldnt by law bring it to the Long Beach shelter, nor could a rescue organization that finds a dog in neighboring Compton bring it in for adoption.

It places a burden on these rescue organizations who are already overburdened, under-resourced and theyre doing the work that LBACS should be doing of adopting animals out, she said. LBACS is not adopting large numbers of animals out because spcaLA doesnt want them to. Its just foisting the problem back on the community.

She remarked that the 677 adoptions LBACS reports is small next to comparable cities like Sacramento, whose shelter managed 5,000 adoptions. That citys website states that the shelter sent out 5,037 dogs and cats for adoption last year and 4,321 as of October this year.

And regarding the proposed ordinance amending the number of pets people can have, Turner said her organization advocates for eight rather than six but said such laws dont impact animal welfare by themselves.

If youre concerned about animal welfare, the laws dont do anything in terms of changing human behavior except to deter responsible people who would take good care of a larger number of animals from having them, she said, adding that Sacramento allows up to 10 pets per household. Sacramentos website states that residents can harbor up to three dogs and seven cats.

Public opinion supports a no-kill policy and stronger adoption efforts, Turner said, but also noted that LBACS and spcaLA practices affect all pet owners.If your dog gets out, your dog could go to the shelter, Turner said. And if he gets sick, [] he could be killed.

Shelter progressDespite these concerns, Staycee Dains, LBACS manager, told the Signal Tribune that she collaborated with Mouet on the steps and is hopeful for continued progress.She said that the City has already made great strides in reducing its stray-animal population following the four-year-old spay-and-neuter ordinance.

Courtesy City of Long BeachGraph from Phase 2 of the City of Long Beachs audit of its animal-care services showing increases in live-release rates of animals in recent years

The City increasing its limit of how many pets residents can have will further reduce the stray-animal population, she said.The idea is to allow people to have more animals so they can adopt more animals from the shelter, she said.

Dains said she is also hopeful that the MOU with spcaLA will formalize the ways in which their operations work together, especially as LBACS has evolved over the past decade.

We really want to make sure our efforts are collaborative and make sure whatever were putting into place is going to be definitely beneficial for the LBACS shelter animals she said. Im very hopeful that we will be able to come up with a memorandum of understanding.

Dains added that LBACS will begin negotiations as soon as possible and expects the process to be short, hoping to complete the agreement early in 2020.

Dains said she is also confident in LBACSs Compassion Saves model to ensure the animals in its care get everything they need and especially an appropriate outcome, whether that means being returned to an owner, adopted, placed in foster care or sent to a rescue organization.

We want to make sure that were making excellent outcome decisions for them, Dains said. Making sure that animals are getting to their outcome as soon as possible is a really important part of the Compassion Saves model.

Dains said she is also pleased with reforms allowing volunteers to come on board faster.

Weve streamlined some of our training so that those who can come to the shelter and go through the screening process and be trained has been thankfully truncated, she said.

She added the City has opened up the window of time it can screen volunteer candidates by contracting with another organization to provide such services as fingerprinting.

People wont have to wait from their orientation to their processing time, which for some people could be weeks, Dains said. Weve definitely seen an increase in volunteer retention from going to that process.

More volunteers have allowed LBACS to develop new programs, such as behavior rehabilitation for dogs, Dains said.

Prior to starting this program, [some dogs] were not getting their needs met and so would languish in the shelter [and] their behaviors would become increasingly concerning because they werent getting the right type of enrichment, like getting out of their kennels and getting the right type of handling, Dains said.

She noted that a lot of the dogs at the shelter have been through trauma and need someone to guide them through that experience through specific activities with volunteers, such as educational training that helps them cope with the shelter environment.

It has made a huge difference in the stress level of our dogs in our kennels and the ease of volunteers being able to handle the dogs, she said.

As for cats, Dains said her own office has become the place for especially scared cats to calm down before continuing into the shelter.

People have been so invested and have really made a lot of personal sacrifices to see our animal-services department succeed, Dains said. Were very excited to keep up the momentum and progress that everyone in our community has worked on for so many years.

More here:

Long Beach City Council to consider increasing allowed pets from 4 to 6 to reduce animal euthanasia - Signal Tribune