New euthanasia lobby group launched in Australia
by Xavier Symons | 12 Aug 2016 |
Influential Australian journalist Andrew Denton has launched a new campaign for assisted dying in Australia, and called on the Catholic Church to "stay out" of the euthanasia debate.
Denton, a well-known radio and television personality, delivered a scathing address to the Australian Press Club on Wednesday in which he called for rapid law reform: "To the politicians of South Australia...and to those of Victoria, Tasmania and NSW, who can expect new Bills within the year – I urge you: Do your duty."
Denton claimed that the failure to legalise euthanasia in the country was the result of a "subterranean" network of religious politicians and businessmen.
"...on the questions that are most fundamental to how we live, love and die, religious belief trumps everything. This is the theocracy hidden inside our democracy."He also used the occasion to launch a pro-euthanasia lobby group Go Gentle Australia.
Denton’s speech generated significant controversy. The Australian Christian Lobby slammed the media personality for his misguided claims of a “religious conspiracy”, and for sending a negative message to vulnerable people.
Denton also accused Labor shadow minister Tony Burke of stifling earlier attempts to legalise euthanasia. Burke rejected the claims: “Pretending my faith determines my political views hits a pretty clear wall when you consider my support for marriage equality. The claim past debates were driven solely by religion doesn’t explain why many atheists and people such as Lindsay Tanner and Barry Jones held the same view as me.”
The death of Ivo Pitanguy in Rio this week was the intersection of bioethics and the Olympics. The world’s best-known cosmetic surgeon and a celebrity in his native Brazil, he carried the Olympic flame on the day before he died of a heart attack at the age of 93.
A member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, Pitanguy thought deeply about his specialty. “My operations are not just for my patients’ bodies. They are for their souls,” he wrote. He regarded beauty as a human right and he made cosmetic surgery as popular among the poor as among glittering celebrities.
However, his poetic vision of his specialty clashes with the scepticism of some bioethicists. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, in the UK, is currently conducting an inquiry into cosmetic procedures, in response to concerns that patients are being victimized and that the industry is sustained by sexist stereotypes. Its discussion paper is particularly interesting. We hope to cover this area in more depth in the future.
Michael Cook
Editor
BioEdge
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