New assisted suicide legislation became effective in June in the Australian State of Victoria. Applications for death are approved and at least one patient has already died. With this new legislation in one state of Australia, now others are debating euthanasia laws that are even more permissive. Doctors in West Australia might be allowed to suggest euthanasia to their patients for example, while it is illegal for Victorian doctors to do the same.Chris Moye, the chair of the Australian Medical Association's ethics committee, is concerned that the Victorian law has started a slippery slope that will end up relaxing euthanasia law far more than intended. "...we haven’t seen how assisted dying works in Victoria and yet the slippage is happening across these various jurisdictions. I think there are two reasons: people were always going to be looking at it (the Victorian law) and the tendency always is to relax legislation.” Click here for more.
