Despite public support, Human Rights Minister Tara Cheyne will limit access to voluntary assisted dying for minors. Photo: Thomas Lucraft.
Terminally ill 16 and 17-year-olds are unlikely to be eligible for voluntary assisted dying (VAD) in the ACT under proposed legislation.
Human Rights Minister Tara Cheyne will update the inaugural Voluntary Assisted Dying National Conference 2023 in Sydney today (28 September) on where the ACT’s VAD legislation is heading.
She will tell the conference that the government has moved away from VAD being available to the terminally ill aged under 18 despite finding strong support for it during public consultation.
Ms Cheyne says in her speech that the complexities around decision-making capacity, the expected small take-up in the ACT and potential delays to the overall scheme meant it would probably not be included in the coming legislation.
She says the government had heard that young people under 18 also experience intolerable end-of-life suffering through terminal illnesses and should have the same end-of-life choices as adults.
But “it is clear there are policy complexities, particularly in relation to a young person’s emerging capacity and autonomy, and in assessing their decision-making capacity”.
“This presents a significant risk to both the support of the clinical care community and the potential impact on implementation timeframes,” Ms Cheyne says
Ms Cheyne says initial modelling and clinical experience indicate that uptake of VAD by mature minors would be extremely infrequent.
“Considering this, together with the complexity of its implementation and the resulting delays that would affect the overall scheme’s implementation, a preference is emerging to not continue pursuing this in our legislative model,” she says.
However, the government will revisit the issue when the legislation is reviewed some years after VAD becomes available.
Ms Cheyne will also tell the conference the ACT legislation may make it “explicitly unlawful” for care facilities to refuse services to a person on the sole basis that they may seek access to VAD.
“We know that some people who wish to access VAD in the ACT will rely on facilities for care, nursing or accommodation, and those organisations may actively oppose VAD for religious or other reasons, such as lack of organisational capacity,” she says.
Ms Cheyne says a preference is emerging that care facilities may decide their level of involvement with VAD so long as they do not hinder access to VAD and comply with minimum standards.
This includes allowing the administering health professional access to the facility or facilitating the transfer of the patient where this is not practicable.
The facility would also have to publish information about its involvement with VAD and how it complies with the minimum standards.
It is also likely that given the limited number of health professionals in the ACT, nurse practitioners will be part of the VAD scheme.
Ms Cheyne says public consultation showed strong support for nurse practitioner involvement in VAD.
The legislation is also likely to not require an estimation of life expectancy for a person to be eligible for VAD to avoid unfair and unjust outcomes, including prolonged suffering.
“What I can advise today is that our preference is firming that a person with an advanced, progressive and terminal condition may access voluntary assisted dying without the coordinating or consulting practitioner having to estimate whether they fit into a specific time until death category,” Ms Cheyne says.
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