Newspaper journalists, especially those who do the Letters pages, can tell a letter-writing campaign fairly quickly.
The difference between the spontaneously spurred and vicariously stirred becomes apparent in what is written and how it is written.
If committees of the ACT Legislative Assembly develop a similar nose, the euthanasia committee should cast 88 of its 130 submissions into the rubbish bin.
The 88 submissions are all “”concerned”. They are all against the Bill. And they all make one or two brief unoriginal points. Euthanasia is against God’s law; life is sacred; it legalises killing; a doctor’s duty is to support life; and it will end in Nazi exterminations of the disabled.
The other 42 submissions are made up as follows. For active euthanasia: two organisations and eight individuals. Against: 10 religious, three medical and three non-religious organisations, and 15 individuals who do not fit the “”campaign” mould.
The 88 “”campaign” letters have no idea what a parliamentary committee is about. They imagine it is a voting procedure. Many of the submissions say: “”I would like to vote against . . . ”.
It shows, however, that even if the letter writers do not know what a committee is about, the people who organised them have a good idea what politics is about. On a head count, we have 12 to 1 against euthanasia. This figure will be bandied about, no doubt, in the ensuing debate. The figure is nonsense. A parliamentary committee is formed to inquire into details of a Bill. It is not a crude vote. If the Assembly wanted that, it would organise a referendum, money permitting. In the absence of that, properly conducted opinion polls are a better way to gauge public opinion.
Even then, public opinion is not necessarily the best way to determine legislation. If it were, we would have capital punishment, corporal punishment and castrate rapists. The most satisfactory aspects of Australian democracy is that the rule of law and responsible and representative government guard us from the crude emotions of the mob.
This is why the committee should ignore the head count of the submissions and concentrate on the issues raised in them. Many make salient points about safeguards. Others make convincing arguments about the unsatisfactory and uncertain state of present law.
Euthanasia is an issue, like gun control and abortion, that excites a minority of interested people into great passion such that people will change their vote on that issue alone, irrespective of their normal political predilections.
Politicians tread warily on these issues. The minority is not only vocal, it is focal. It can truncate a targeted politician’s career. So the majority view is ignored because it does not affect political outcomes, and the minority view is attended to.
Politicians have watered down gun-control proposals in Victoria and NSW despite majority opinion and continuing multi-death shooting incidents. More recently, the ACT Government hid from the strident anti-abortion minority by disguising funding for a clinic.
On euthanasia, Labor has had it in sleeping its policy for a long time, but never acted upon until that independent menace Michael Moore came along and started to put Labor Party policy into private Member’s Bills and demanded the Labor Party put its mouth where its policy platform was.
Euthanasia, both passive and active, appears to be supported by large majorities in Australia, according to Morgan Gallup polling. On passive euthanasia a survey in May asked: “”Next a question on people who are hopelessly ill and in great pain. If there is absolutely no chance of a patient recovering, should the doctor let the patient die or should the doctor try to keep the patient alive?”
Seventy-three per cent said let the patient die.
If in the same circumstance the patient asks for a lethal dose, should the doctor be allowed to administer it? Seventy-eight per cent said yes.
That extra five per cent is interesting. It appears people do not like suffering and some plainly prefer active euthanasia rather than just sitting by letting a patient in great pain die.
The trouble with such a poll, however, is that it is too hypothetical. It is not in the world of medical reality on several counts. Nowadays, pain management is, or should be, very good. Secondly, pain management and euthanasia are blurred issues. They very relief of pain through drugs can become active euthanasia.
Thirdly, the poll’s question infers the pain is constant and that the patient’s request for a lethal dose reflects a constant state of mind. Medical reality is different. Sporadic pain can induce a temporary wish by a patient to be put out of misery _ a wish which later some patients might be glad was not fulfilled.
Fourthly, what is “”hopelessly ill with no chance of recovering”?
The 88 campaign letters and the Morgan Gallup poll show that the popular grasp of the euthanasia issue is clouded by religious prejudice or fairly crude. However, the 42 other submissions show the complexity of the issue _ in particular the submissions on the doctors’ and nurses’ dilemma and the moving submission from the AIDS Action Council. So there is some hope of removing present uncertainties and hypocricies that put the burden of decision on nurses and doctors and pretend that euthanasia does not happen.
At least this debate has brought the issue out of the silence of the hospital wards. In doing so, it has uncovered some passionately held worries and widely held misconceptions which must be met.
Maybe it is a case for a citizen’s veto provision. If a euthanasia law (active and/or passive) passes the Assembly it could have a provision for, say, five per cent of the electorate (8000 people) to petition for a compulsory referendum (after a year or so of the law being in force) on whether the law should stay in force.
Such a provision would give the 88 campaigners and their ilk a chance to see what community support they had and, after a year or so of such a law being in force, it would put some reality into the search for community opinion that is lacking opinion polls.