MPs listening to the Assisted Dying Bill committee here at Westminster may have felt comforted as the invited Australian witnesses told them that all was well there, that any issues in implementation had been ironed out by the professionals.

But we needed to hear the straight truth, and so we asked Robert Clark, who was in parliament when Victorian Assisted Death legislation was passed, if Westminster MPs should feel reassured by what they heard from Australian witnesses:

“No, absolutely not”

Robert is clear that he tried to stop the Victorian bill as an MP, but that things there have turned out even worse than he feared.

In their regime, which he says has been “designed to find out nothing, investigate nothing, report nothing that could cast any doubt on it being anything other than an unblemished success”:

* Doctors are trained to assess that patients are acting ‘voluntarily and without coercion’ in choosing to die. But that training is online, e-learning. And shockingly, only 5 minutes of that training is spent on detecting coercion, or domestic violence.

* No one has been turned down for assisted suicide in Victoria in the last two years.

* The Australian state of Victoria was the first to implement assisted dying in the “Australian model”. As other states implemented assisted dying, they went further each time, and now Victoria seeks to catch up on the basis of ‘equality’. This is a warning for us, with England & Wales and Scotland considering law, and the Isle of Man having already decided to implement assisted death: that each will push further on grounds of equality.

* The slippery slope is even steeper: just days after telling Holyrood MSPs that there was no slippery slope, the Victorian VAD Board published a report with an appendix containing number of safeguards which are proposed for removal. The government is now taking forward proposals just like these. Safeguards, become barriers.

* That Victorian law was the project of their Premier, who pushed this through in a “disgraceful” rushed process with late night sittings and a report that read more like a euthanasia advocacy document”

* The change of attitudes within medical practice: as those who don’t want to participate in assisted death are pushed out “victimised”, and as suicide becomes the response to suffering.

Chelsea and Fiona were strangers, new to assisted dying. We wanted to make sure that we had some robust debate on what assisted death might mean for all of us – and especially women. We’ve made it into the Westminster debate and into the press, but please consider a paid subscription so we can continue to make these interviews.

What else is happening in assisted dying?

It looks like assisted dying is coming to Holyrood on or about the 15th May. Write to your MSPs to tell them if you have concerns over this bill. We’ll talk more about the Scottish bill before then, but it does go further than the Westminster bill in allowing children (16+) to die.

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