– Tej Francis
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
FIRST PERMIT ISSUED UNDER AUSTRALIAN STATE’S ASSISTED SUICIDE, EUTHANASIA LAW
(CNA) The first permit for medically assisted death in Victoria was issued in recent weeks, less than a month after the Australian state’s legalization of voluntary assisted suicide and euthanasia took effect. The Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 allows adult Victoria residents who are terminally ill, expected to die within six months (or 12 if they have a neurodegenerative condition), and mentally competent, to ask their doctor to prescribe drugs that will end their lives. The law took effect June 19. Two doctors must verify the requester’s eligibility, and the person must make three requests for assisted suicide or euthanasia. Those seeking to end their lives must have lived in Victoria for at least a year, and be an Australian citizen or permanent resident.
Physicians will be allowed to administer the drugs via an intravenous drip to those incapable of swallowing. Health practitioners are granted conscientious objection rights against participation in euthanasia or assisted suicide under the law. The Victorian health minister, Jenny Mikakos, has said the state expects about a dozen people to utilize assisted suicide or euthanasia during the first year the law is in effect. She expects this number to top out at about 150 people each year. There are about 6.5 million Victorian residents.
Efforts to expand access to assisted suicide and euthanasia have grown in recent years. Presently, at least one of the practices is legal in nine US states and the District of Columbia, as well as in all Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Colombia. Victoria is the only Australian jurisdiction where assisted suicide or euthanasia are legal.
The four Latin rite ordinaries in Victoria wrote a pastoral letter denouncing the state’s “new, and deeply troubling chapter of health care” when the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 took effect. In a June 14 letter, the bishops of Melbourne, Ballarat, Sale, and Sandhurst wrote that “We cannot cooperate with the facilitation of suicide, even when it seems motivated by empathy or kindness.”
WASHINGTON, D.C.
NO EXECUTIONS, BUT 70 KILLINGS OVER BLASPHEMY LAW, SAYS RIGHTS ACTIVIST
(CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE) Despite the blasphemy law that has roiled Christians in Pakistan, the government has not executed anyone found guilty at trial. However, 70 people accused of blasphemy have been murdered in extrajudicial actions by mobs, said Peter Jacob, executive director of the Centre for Social Justice based in Lahore, Pakistan.
“The lethality of the law is not only tested by the law but by the people,” Jacob said during a mid-July interview with Catholic News Service. Jacob was in Washington to attend the U.S. State Department’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, as was Rubina Feroze Bhatti, a founding member and current general secretary of Taangh Wasaib Organization. The organization is a rights-based development group working for interfaith harmony and gender equality in addressing religious intolerance, sectarianism and discriminatory laws against women and minorities.
Christians fear both the loss of their livelihood and displacement because the Pakistani law is “vague” on what constitutes an insult to Islam or Muhammad, its founder, Jacob said. “There is this tremendous struggle to have this law either amended or the effect of the law to be neutralized by parallel legislation introducing safeguards to abuse,” he added.
HONG KONG
CHRISTIAN LEADERS CALL FOR AN END TO VIOLENCE AND A RETURN TO DIALOGUE
(AsiaNews) Some of Hong Kong’s Christian leaders have issued an urgent call for the withdrawal of the extradition bill, an end to provocations and violence, and the establishment of a commission of inquiry to find the truth about the clashes. The letter, titled ‘Urgent Appeal regarding the Ongoing Clashes Between the Police and Members of the Public’, was signed by Card John Tong, apostolic administrator of the diocese, and Rev Eric So Shing-yit, president of the Christian Council of Hong Kong.
The two write that “The mass protests against the proposed amendments to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance (the infamous extradition bill) have resulted in clashes and violence between the Police and members of the public, and the situation is deteriorating. The people of Hong Kong are deeply worried and distressed.” For this reason, the signatories “urge the Chief Executive to respond as soon as possible to the strong demands of the public to withdraw the Bill” and call on “the Government to set up an independent commission of inquiry as soon as possible to find out the truth in an impartial manner.”
Turning to the parties, the appeal notes that everyone “must exercise restraint and avoid provocation. Regardless of one’s political stance, one should treasure life and refrain from doing anything that might harm oneself or others. The two Christian leaders end their plea urging “the government to take the initiative to confer with the representatives of different factions to seek a solution to the current impasse.”
Follow
