Branka van der Linden shrilly cherry-picks one finding from a journal paper and tells whoppers about the Netherlands and other VAD jurisdictions. What’s the big deal? In her email, Ms van der Linden wrote provocatively against the Netherlands’ voluntary assisted dying (VAD) law, citing a recently-published medical journal study of Dutch VAD cases that involved people with intellectual disabilities or autism spectrum disorder (or both). The study is a legitimate examination of cases published by the Dutch Euthanasia Commissions, and contains numerous observations and some qualifications. The ..read more

Religiouis dogmatism about social policy within the Anglican church in Australia is contributing to a very substantial exodus of its congregation. I’ve discussed this subject in my research series Religiosity in Australia, penned as a Fellow of the Australian Rationalist Society. And this week, we were furnished with another example underpinning exodus 101, this time from the Anglican church. Most Anglicans oppose VAD, don’t they? In a piece for The Melbourne Anglican by writer Jenan Taylor, “Pro assisted dying Anglicans not in the majority”, religious dogmatism seems to be alive and well ..read more

The voluntary assisted dying rates of both the Netherlands and Belgium have levelled off - at different, culturally-bound values - as my analysis six years ago predicted. Using authoritative and robust data, I indicated that the ongoing rise in both countries' VAD rates would level out at rates that were culturally bound. This despite persistent hyperventilations of VAD opponents that most of us would eventually be "knocked off" by not-so-voluntary euthanasia. Generally, the adoption of behaviours at the societal level tends to follow a sigmoidal (stretched S-shaped) curve, and the then VA ..read more

Despite shrill claims that the Netherlands' 2006 protocol would result in the convenient extermination of 'problematic' neonates, its use remains extremely rare, the latest annual report reveals. Ideological opposition to the Groningen Protocol remains, and even gets "scholarly" attention. For example, in 2020, a lengthy anti-Groningen narrative (35 pages) by Bogna Wach was published in Analiza i Egzystenja, a journal of the Polish University of Szczecin.1 In it, the author uses moderate-sounding scholarly language to paint a dark picture of the Protocol. She conflates a range of issues th ..read more

The Anglican archbishop of Sydney has revealed profound ignorance by revealing he hasn't a CLUE what his own flock think about voluntary assisted dying law reform. Sydney Anglican archbishop Kanishka Raffel (pictured on the diocese website above), has launched a program to call on NSW parliamentarians to reject a bill that, with a large number of safeguards, seeks to make VAD lawful in the state. NSW is the last state in the nation to continue to outlaw the practice. The problem is, the archbishop is clearly backing his own personal beliefs and interests when he calls upon Anglicans to sig ..read more

A repeat publisher against voluntary assisted dying for the terminally ill, Dr Marion Harris has let ‘er rip again in The Australian newspaper with eye-watering logical inanity, and misinformation about palliative care. Dr Marion Harris is an experienced Melbourne-based oncologist. Having practiced for some twenty years, she’s co-authored research papers published in the peer-reviewed medical literature regarding the assessment of treatments for particular kinds of cancer. You’d think that such experience and attention to evidence and proper deduction would give rise to a moderate and thou ..read more

The Canberra Times demonstrates why the mainstream media can sometimes be the problem in public-square debates publishing misinformation and failing to publish corrections. It would be unreasonable to expect that the opinion editor of the Canberra Times, Andrew Thorpe, would be intimately versed in the empirical evidence about voluntary assisted dying (VAD). So, it was reasonable that he publish an opinion piece on the topic offered by Archbishop Prowse. What is not reasonable, however, is that the counter-opinion I promptly submitted, pointing out several points of significant misinformat ..read more

The other day, a TV commercial from more than 30 years ago popped into my head. In a rollicking exposé of hidden interests and purposeful agendas, I explain why. The punch line? “Don’t mention it’s healthy and they’ll eat it by the boxful.” The Kellogg's Sultana Bran TV commercial from 1990. Despite having worked in advertising research for years, I’m sure I hadn’t thought of this ad for at least a couple of decades. So what brought this vignette suddenly to mind? It was the release of a new book by academic publisher, Springer: Devos, T, (Ed.) 2021, Euthanasia: Searching for the Full Sto ..read more

The Netherlands' euthanasia commission has just released its latest annual report card, showing a modest rise in cases but a steady proportion of all deaths. The report shows that the number of cases rose around 9% over the 2019 year. However, the number of total deaths was also up, resulting in a continuation of relatively level rate in recent years (Figure 1). Figure 1: The assisted dying rate in the Netherlands and Belgium With Covid-19 deaths having contriuted towards a modest net increase in total deaths last year, the assisted dying rate is likely to be modestly higher in the coming ..read more

Anti-VAD campaigners have caused themselves further major embarrassment by repeatedly cherry-picking statistics to try and establish a case that the full data conflicts with. The reason the statistics are being discussed is because in 2017, Victoria's parliament legalised voluntary assisted dying (VAD) for the terminally ill. The law came into effect halfway through 2019, and 2020 was the first full year of its operation. Australian Care Alliance gets the basics wrong Here's the Australian Care Alliance's (ACA) splashy page trumpeting that Victoria's suicide rate has jumped 21.2% from 694 ..read more