Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Saturday 13th March 2021 at 11:57pm
"HOPE's" Branka van der Linden and the ACA misrepresent figures, again
Here we go again. Branka van der Linden of Catholic anti-VAD website “HOPE”, and the Australian Care Alliance — endorsed by a number of well-known, committed Catholic doctors — have just published more egregious misinformation against VAD. This time they've collectively piled it on Victoria's general suicide statistics, recently updated by the Victorian Coroner. So what did they say, and how did it misrepresent the actual situation? Let's take a look.
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 in 2017 to 842 in 2020.
Figure 1: ACA's splashy page trumpeting a 21.2% increase in Victorian suicides
That's... interesting. According to the Victorian coroner's official figures, there were indeed 694 suicides in Victoria in 2017. However, in 2020 the coroner's figure is actually 698, not 842 as claimed by the ACA. According to the ACA, Victoria's suicide count data looks like this (Figure 2).
Figure 2: The ACA polemically claims that Victoria's suicide count has increased 21.2%
So, how did the ACA reach a count of 842? Well, their argument is to shamefully and humiliatingly disrespect Victoria's terminally ill who died peacefully under its VAD law in 2020 — 144 of them according to the official 2020 reports of Victoria's Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board — and add them to the coronial count of 698 suicides.
The ACA points out that VAD supporters have said that legalising VAD should decrease Victoria's general suicides by about 50 cases a year, but say the count's gone up substantially instead. See how they craftily deploy logical fallacy to fabricate a crisis?
Arguing that VAD law must reduce the suicide count by 50 cases a year (but seemingly didn't) and at the same time adding VAD cases to the suicide count to complain that it's gone up, requires at least three assumptions:
that all terminally ill violent suiciders now automatically qualify for and easily gain access to VAD; and
that nobody else with a terminal illness who would not have chosen violent suicide, should or would use the law; and
that no other factors make a significant difference to trends in general suicides.
All these assumptions are patently false.
Obviously, some people will not legally qualify for VAD; for example, amongst its restrictions it requires death to be expected with 6 months; 12 months for a small set of specific illnesses.
Obviously, some who would not have suicided but instead would suffer intolerably and against their wishes until death, will now choose to pursue VAD.
And obviously, well-known factors such as rates of mental illness, substance abuse, intimate relationship troubles, bullying, financial or legal difficulties, and other factors are major influencers of general suicide rates. But to the ACA, the only factor that supposedly has any effect is the one they are ideologically opposed to: VAD.
It's worrisome that this nonsense is sold to the public by ACA's supposed experts: “health professionals and lawyers”.
Cherry-picked overseas data, too
The ACA's ideological bias is further revealed by their website page about the “social contagion of suicide”. In it, they cite as authoritative, the 2015 Jones and Paton (both firm Catholics) article purporting to show 6.3% suicide contagion from VAD to the general population. I've comprehensively exposed that article as an ideologically-driven mathematical farce fuelled by no fewer than ten major scientific offenses. It's interesting that the ACAs methodology is just like Jones' and Patons': reporting VAD supporter statements that legalisation should decrease the general suicide rate, and then adding VAD deaths to conclude the opposite.
They also commit one of Jones' and Patons' other offences: selectively quoting data from other studies that might be seen to support their theory, but excluding critical alternative information from the same study that runs counter to the theory.
The ACA cites a Swiss study to breathlessly report that 6.5% of those who witnessed an assisted death in that country experienced sub-threshold PTSD, and 13% full PTSD. The ACA expressly states:
“Like any other suicide, assisted suicide can profoundly affect surviving family members and friends.” — The Australian Care Alliance
There you have it: the ACA draws a direct equivalence between peaceful VAD deaths in the face of terminal illness and with loved ones present, and lonely, violent deaths by general suicide.
The ACA cites no other relevant material from the Swiss article. That's revealing, because the article clearly reported that the PTSD rates were higher than in the general population. There's what the ACA left out: the PTSD rates were higher than for almost everyone else who hadn't just suffered the loss of a loved one.
To draw valid and meaningful interpretations, it is necessary to compare the bereavement challenges of VAD family versus families of general deaths, deaths in the face of extreme suffering without hastened death, and cases of violent suicide. As I've published before from peer-reviewed studies, bereavement symptoms of VAD family are at least as good as, and can be better than those where the deceased has suffered in extremis at the end of life, and certainly relative to violent suicides.
The ACA also doesn't mention that the Swiss study found a "prevalence of complicated grief ... comparable to that reported for the general Swiss population". It's not like the information was hard to find. It's right there in the Abstract on the front page of the article.
That the ACA cherry-picked a couple of Swiss data points while omitting key “unhelpful” information, and argued, by linking the selected cherries with the above quote, that said Swiss data established something it clearly did not (that VAD deaths supposedly cause similar family trauma as violent suicides), suggests an astonishing degree of ignorance.
The ACA's cherry-picking of data, while omitting key unhelpful information, suggests an astonishing degree of ignorance.
Enough of that.
Branka van der Linden cherry-picks, too
I've crossed pens (or is that keyboards?) with Ms van der Linden several times before in regard to misinformation. She misinforms on this matter, too.
Curiously, like the ACA and also without explanation, she cherry-picks just the 2017 and 2020 suicide counts from the Victorian coroner's report (Figure 3). You'd think this was the only data in the report, but no, it isn't.
Figure 3: Branca van der Linden's version of Victorian suicide counts by year
She uses these two figures to argue that said drop of 50 cases per year hasn't happened. This employs the same fallacies as the ACA: suggesting that two single data points strongly support a hypothesis, and assuming that the thing one is ideologically opposed to, VAD, is the only thing to alter the rate of general suicides over time.
Like the ACA, she also suggests adding the VAD figures to the coroner's general suicide data to say that in that case, suicides have increased significantly.
Both the Australian Care Alliance and Branca van der Linden cherry-pick just two data points from more full and robust longitudinal data to try and argue their case against VAD.
So what does the coroner's full data set look like?
The actual numbers
The Victorian coroner's 2021 report into suicides contains data for all years 2016 to 2020 inclusive. And it looks like this (Figure 4).
Figure 4: The complete set of data from the Victorian coroner's report on suicide counts per year
Now we're beginning to see a possible reason as to why the ACA and Ms van der Linden chose just two data points. Remember that VAD was legalised by the Victorian parliament in 2017. The law was not in effect for 2017, 2018, or the first half of 2019.
Well, the data clearly suggests an increasing suicide count trend up to 2018. The upward trend stops in 2019, when VAD was in operation for the second half of the year. And in 2020, the first full operational year of VAD, the upward trend has been interrupted by a downward result. Neither the ACL nor Ms van der Linden mention this.
Neither the Australian Care Alliance nor Branca van der Linden mention the fuller, longitudinal data that doesn't support, and indeed appears hostile to, their hypothesis.
Update 19-Mar-2021
I thought it so obvious that I didn't write it up, but a colleague points out it's important to highlight, that in picking just two data points to stake their claim, the ACA and Ms van der Linden chose 2017, and not 2018, as their reference year. To compare “after” with “before” in the most basicly valid manner (full longitudinal data is better), it is appropriate to compare the last data point that completely excludes the new condition (VAD law in operation), with the first data point that fully includes it.
Those years are 2018 (none of the year) and 2020 (all of the year). But the ACA and Ms van der Linden didn't pick 2018, they picked 2017.
What possible reason might explain that? Well, by comparing 2017 with 2020, they got to say that the general suicide count increased by 2 from 694 to 698. However, had they more validly compared 2018 with 2020, they would have had to report a drop of 19 from 717 to 698.
And that would have contradicted their flimsy confection that suicides hadn't gone down after VAD was introduced.
But even the raw suicide count statistics are a bit misleading.
Interpreting suicide data correctly
Using raw counts to compare suicide statistics (e.g. year to year or place to place) is lazy and wrong. All other things being equal, if you had twice the population, you'd expect twice the suicide count. To make valid comparisons, you have to compare rates, not raw counts. This is relevant because populations obviously change over time, and Victoria between 2016 and 2020 was no exception.
I've retrieved the official Victorian population figures by year and computed the standard official suicide rate statistic: suicides per 100,000 population. The Victorian suicide rates look like this (Figure 5):
Figure 5: Victorian suicides per 100k population by year
The data shows a rising suicide rate from 2016 to 2018, a levelling off in 2019 in which VAD was operational for half the year, and a fall back to the 2016 rate in 2020, the first full operational year of VAD.
Computing from the rate drop between 2018 (11.4 with no VAD law) and 2020 (10.8, first full year of VAD law), the equivalent count of suicide decrease in 2020 was 38 persons. And that's without assuming the general suicide rate would have continued its rising trend.
The equivalent suicide decrease from 2018 to 2020 was 38 persons.
Getting all the numbers right
The ACA correctly cites then Minister for Health, Ms Jill Hennessy, as stating in 2017 that "Evidence from the coroner indicated that one terminally ill Victorian was taking their life each week." That would be 52 cases a year, which the ACA rounds out to 50 a year. The headline figure from the coroner's report actually calculates to 48. No biggie, just round numbers.
But the figure is quite wrong. You have to read the coroner's special 2017 report to the Victorian parliament regarding suicides in cases of illness, to calculate the correct numbers.
The coroner's report didn't just include suicide data for terminally ill people. It also included cases of advanced incurable but not terminal illness, and cases of severe suffering resulting from injuries. So the terminal illness data (to which the VAD law is relevant) is a fraction of the total. We can calculate from the Tables in the report that 23% of the cases were in respect of injuries, so that leaves 77% for terminal and other advanced illnesses.
Of the illnesses listed, the relevant one as a proxy measure for terminal illness is “cancer”, and that comprises 50% of the illness cases. So, 50% of 77% of 48 cases a year = 19 cases a year in respect of terminal illness.
So that's an actual likely decrease of 19 suicide cases a year, compared with an equivalent drop in the actual data of 38 persons in the first full year.
The actual annual count of general suicides in respect of terminal illness, as reported to the Victorian parliament by the state coroner in 2017, was 19 persons a year, and not 50 as widely stated.
Don't get carried away
It's imporant to note that citing this interesting numeric analysis as “proof” of the law's effectiveness in respect of reducing Victoria's suicide rate, would, at present, be an overconfident claim. While far more firmly based in proper forms of evidence than the vapid nonsense promoted by the ACA and Ms van der Linden, this is a correlation. Correlation does not equal causation: the ACA and Ms van der Linden should remember that. For example, 2020 was a very unusual, Covid-19-dominated annus horribilis, which may have affected suicide rates in unexpected ways.
While the coroner's fuller data set so far is consistent with reasoned expectations of suicide substitution, it is premature to conclude the data proves the principle. More years' data, and more detailed, causative analysis involving the control of confounding factors, is necessary before reaching greater certainty in the association.
But as I've published in detailed and extensive analyses based on robust official data, so far all the longitudinal data on suicide rates in jurisdictions where VAD is lawful is consistent with suicide substitution, not suicide contagion. Some VAD opponents just cherry-pick their way through tidbits to try and argue the opposite.
To date, all the robust, longitudinal data on suicides in jurisdictions where VAD is lawful is consistent with suicide substitution, not suicide contagion.
Conclusion
The Australian Care Alliance and Ms van der Linden disgracefully cherry-pick and misrepresent Victoria's recent suicide data in a manner consistent with their own theories, while proper and appropriate analysis of the full data available shows results inconsistent with their hypothesis, and currently consistent with the opposite.
To paraphrase Ms van der Linden's own statement: “It is unfortunate that the deaths of terminally ill Victorians were politicised so shamelessly by [anti-]euthanasia activists for their own ends.”
These continued cherry-picked data gaffes are an embarrassment to their promoters.
Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Friday 18th September 2020 at 4:47am
Deep and extensive Catholic connections are behind supposedly secular attacks on VAD.
A friend pointed out to me an opinion piece published this week in MercatorNet that slams Victoria's voluntary assisted dying (VAD) law. Written about an elderly woman with cancer who used the law to die peacefully, it's an angry diatribe written by the woman’s granddaughter-in-law: one Mrs Madeleine Dugdale.
Update 21-Sep-2020
Mrs Madeleine Dugdale's article has been withdrawn from MercatorNet without explanation. Here's a screenshot of the original.
And this is Mrs Dougdale's "about" page after the article was withdrawn.
While it's far from my preferred practice to take on someone recently bereaved, Mrs Dugdale has put herself and her family firmly in the public square by publishing an editorial about her grandmother's death (actually her husband’s gran) the very day after she died.
All is not as it seems and a response is required.
Catholic talking points
Let's not beat about the bush: Mrs Dugdale's piece is a grotesque misrepresentation of Victoria's VAD law and relies on gallingly distorted framing. Despite not mentioning faith, religion or Catholicism, her opinion piece ticks most Catholic talking-point boxes I've pointed out previously, such as Mrs Dugdale’s:
Headlining that her gran was not in particular pain. We already know from extensive overseas experience that pain is a less common reason behind why people consider VAD.
Being sure to emphasise the death was a suicide, and that "suicide is not courageous, it's an horrendous act of desperation and defeat".
Linking it to loneliness caused by Covid-19 lockdown.
Shabbily inferring that doctors did not discuss and offer all and anything palliative care could bring to bear, when there's a consultation process mandated by law.
Suggesting that palliative care could alleviate all intolerable suffering, but which both palliative care peak bodies in Australia concede is not possible.
Scandalously implying that medical care workers were forced to participate in her assisted death against their will, when the law protects anyone who wishes to decline.
Suggesting her gran's choice was an issue of mental health, implying that she wasn't fit to decide, when in fact doctors must confirm decisional capacity.
Describing the process as "obfuscation and secrecy" when a strong chain of documentary evidence is mandated, while no process is mandated for the Catholic church's own accepted patient path to foreseeable death: refusal of life-saving medical treatment.
Mrs Dugdale employs no fewer than eight Catholic church talking points in her attack on Victoria's VAD law.
Spurned "help"
Also of note is Mrs Dugdale's description that she and her husband were "silenced" and "quickly shut down" so there was "little my husband and I could do to help." Did the family actually want help of the kind Mrs Dugdale and her husband were determined to dispense?
One wonders what Mrs Dugdale's gran would think if she could see how a granddaughter-in-law had sought to weaponise her choice for VAD, against the law itself.
Update 24-Sep-2020
We now know what gran's immediate family thought of Madelein Dugdale's savage misrepresentation of their mum's death. It's not pretty, and they've asked Madeleine for a written apology. Read the full story at Go Gentle Australia.
Who is Madelaine Dugdale?
So who is Mrs Madelaine Dugdale? Her article bio reports only that she's a former Melbourne high school teacher and now a full-time mum of four with one on the way. Move along, nothing to see here…
Well, it’s worth looking a bit more carefully, elsewhere. Mrs Dugdale graduated from (Catholic) Campion College. And that high school where she worked? St Kevin’s (Catholic) College in Toorak, Melbourne, where she taught… religion.
She's a leading member of Catholic Voices Australia, whose purpose is "putting the Church's case in the public square."
So in summary, this anti-VAD diatribe bristling with Catholic church misinformation was penned by a leading member of Catholic Voices Australia whose remit is "putting the Church's case in the public square", but which failed to identify that religious connection and attempted to give the appearance of secular impartiality.
If there's any remaining doubt about Mrs Dugdale's Catholic devotion, here she is discussing the Pope's amoris laetetia (the joy of love) book with Fr Tony Kerin, an Episcopal Vicar for Life, Marriage and Family in Melbourne.
Mrs Dugdale's anti-VAD tirade is published online by the masthead MercatorNet. It declares itself to be "dignitarian", and reveals that its Editor is a Catholic who believes in God. The masthead is named after Gerardus Mercator, the C16th cradle Catholic cartographer.
MercatorNet's About webpage opines that "religion adds clarity and conviction to the task of defending human dignity" — as if that's an exclusive province or even necessary feature of "religion" — and insists that arguments it publishes are "based on universally accepted moral principles, common sense and evidence, not faith."
Pfft.
Another invitation to "dig here"
Methinks they doth protest too much. It doesn't take much effort to peel back the veneer of neutrality.
MercatorNet is a trading name of the company New Media Foundation Ltd. (For reference, another of its trading names is BioEdge, which has the same Editor as MercatorNet, but we'll get to that later.) It's a company limited by guarantee; a registered charity established in 2005 and based in NSW.
Oddly, its 2019 ACNC records claim 2 full-time and 10 casual employees for a full-time equivalent (FTE) of 5. However, their total payroll expenditure as lodged, "Editor fees", was less than $38k. But If FTE is 5, then that's an average of just $7,600 per full-time annum. A minimum wage of $16/h over a year, without holiday leave, would equate to around $27k per person, times 5 would make a total minimum lawful payroll budget of $135k per annum. Hmmm.
Other major expenses were website maintenance and hosting ($26k), paying contributors ($18k), and insurance ($4k).
The company's bare-bones website mysteriously states only that its mission is "to help people navigate modern complexities in a way that respects the fullness of human dignity."
Of its masthead MercatorNet, the company’s website says only that the outlet is "dignitarian" and "doesn't want to be trapped on one or the other side of the culture wars". Of its BioEdge masthead it says that it's "completely independent".
Double pfft.
Who controls the company?
According to ASIC's records, the four registered Directors of New Media Foundation Ltd are Romano and Francine Pirola, Jude Hennessy and Michael Cook. Romano Pirola is the Chairperson, yet it is Michael Cook and Jude Hennessy who signed off the company's latest financial statements. Who are these people?
Romano Pirola and his wife Mavis were Joint Chairs of the Australian Catholic Marriage and Family Council, which advises the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. They were appointed by the Pope in 2014 as one of just 14 married couples worldwide to participate in the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family. They've been awarded the church's honour of Knight and Dame of the order of St Gregory for services to the Church, and in 2016 were awarded honorary doctorates by Australian Catholic University.
Francine Pirola is the wife of Byron Pirola, Romano and Mavis Pirola's son. Francine and Byron were awarded honours by Pope Francis in 2019, are directors of the Catholic Marriage Resource Centre (which, incidentally, acknowledges that Catholic wedding numbers have been falling for 25 years) and were joint Chairs (like Byron's parents before them) of the Australian Catholic Marriage and Family Council. They've even represented the Australian Catholic Bishops at meetings of the Pontifical Council of the Family.
They're also the couple whose investment company loaned anti-marriage-equality lobby group Marriage Alliance $1.67m in support of anti-LGBTI flyers handed out to children on school buses. The Crikey exposé makes further interesting reading.
Jude Hennesy is director of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine for the Catholic Diocese of Wollongong. It's responsible for "special religious education" in state schools.
Michael Cook is Editor of both MercatorNet and BioEdge. He's been a member of the devout lay Catholic group, Opus Dei for more than four decades. Unlike MercatorNet's About page, BioEdge's own About page doesn't mention religious links of any kind, and says it's "completely independent".
All four directors of MercatorNet's controlling company are very deeply and strongly invested in the Catholic church. One of them, Michael Cook, is its Editor.
MercatorNet's remit
Back in October 2016 I did a keyword breakdown of articles published by MercatorNet. In the then 11 years of its existence, assuming no articles were taken down, it had published more than 2,000 articles containing the word "Catholic". That's a lot for a small outlet: an average of 3.5 "Catholic" articles a week, every week, for 11 years.
In comparison, there were no articles containing the word "Anglican", and just 51 containing the expression "Church of England". There were also 121 mentioning "Hindu", and 868 mentioning "Islam", with many of those negative.
New Media Foundation Ltd's ACNC record indicates its qualifying charitable purpose is "advancing education". But publishing thousands of articles mentioning religion, most of them Catholic, would seem to more fully reflect the qualifying charitable purpose of "advancing religion". But they chose "advancing education" instead — which bypasses any mention of religion.
Tellingly, every visit to and search on the MercatorNet website currently results in a pop-up that invites you to join their "influential community of truth-tellers" to "push back against post-modern relativism". That "relativism" is a pet peeve (and language) of the Catholic church.
MercatorNet attacks post-modern relativism: a pet peeve of the Catholic church, to be countered by "truth-tellers".
MercatorNet headlines the Catholic church's pet peeve: post-modern relativism. This is hardly surprising given its controlling company is run by Opus Dei members, Catholic church staff, and church honours recipients.
The founding of New Media Foundation Ltd
When it was founded in 2005, New Media Foundation Ltd's registered address was 296 Drummond Street, Carlton, Victoria. Significant? Decide for yourself.
That's the address of the Drummond Study Centre. And its connection? "Spiritual activities in the centre are entrusted to Opus Dei, a personal prelature of the Catholic Church." Notice how the centre's name doesn't mention "Catholic" or even religion in any way, either. You have to delve through its web pages to find out.
Previous directors
Similarly, the list of former New Media Foundation Ltd company directors adds to its storyline.
One is Mr Richard Vella, who is or was the spokesperson for Opus Dei in Australia. He describes his personal relationship with God as "the greatest love of my life". Another is Fr Phillip Elias, who was ordained into Opus Dei in Rome in 2017.
Another founding director was Fr Amin Abboud, who died in 2013 and was given a full requiem mass funeral at St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney, presided over by church officials including Monsignor Victor Martinez, the then Regional Vicar of Opus Dei for Australia and New Zealand.
Yet another is Carolyn Moynihan, Deputy Editor of MercatorNet and frequent contributor to Crisis Magazine, "a voice for faithful Catholic laity" and a contributor to the Catholic Exchange. She rails repeatedly against the harms of marriage equality.
Get the picture?
New Media Foundation Ltd and its masthead MercatorNet's Catholic underpinnings are deep and strong.
The roots of the garden
But if you think it might simply be a small bunch of enthusiastic individuals, think again. This veritable garden of fertile Catholic plants arose from somewhere.
Where might that be? I've already pointed out seeding strategies for non-clerical commentary promoted by the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher. It's also worth pointing out that, like any other major institution that seeks to influence public policy, the Catholic church in Australia maintains a whole media and communications department.
Further, the Australian Catholic Media Council hosted the triennial Australian Catholic Communications Congress in 2018, which notably for the first time ever was held together with the Australasian Catholic Press Association (ACPA) Conference. ACPA's brief is to "give voice to Catholic perspectives on the issues of our societies". Former Vatican journalist Greg Erlandson delivered the keynote address to the joint conference, and masterclasses were held to "hone particular skills".
Not a recent phenomenon
If you think this just a recent phenomenon you'd be mistaken. Back issues of the Vatican's own newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, prove most enlightening.
At least as far back as the eighties, through the nineties and the noughties, the Vatican has been vigorous in its promotion of media engagement across Europe, Asia/Pacific and the Americas. For example, in March 1990 Pope John Paul II noted "unprecedented opportunities" to proclaim the word of God via media channels in central and eastern Europe.
In the same year, Archbishop John Foley, then President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, told media workers at a Catholic world congress not to "falsely" compartmentalise their lives into private piety versus professional work subjected to commercial pressure, but instead spread Catholic "truth". He also schooled filmmakers amongst the gathering that "great films are 'at least implicitly religious'".
The Vatican and its 'authorities' repeatedly cajole Catholics into "truth-telling", which means evangelising the church's stances.
Ongoing evangelisation focus
Pope John Paul II repeated his firm wish for more mass media coverage in a major address in 1992, and a follow-on note in the same year encouraged USA Catholic journalists to "put their professional skills at the service of the Gospel".
The Catholic church believes the mass media needs a Catholic presence.
In another example in 1993 Pope John Paul II emphasised how new media — then videotapes and audiocassettes — could serve the "new evangelisation". And in 2002, he again implored Catholics to adopt the latest new media — the Internet — in "proclaiming the Gospel". Two years later MercatorNet was launched online, as were other similar sites.
And if there was any doubt as to what Catholic communications services were for, in October 2012, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a major address confirming that "the church exists to evangelise".
That's just a few of the many.
Media for the faithful
Back in Australia, B. A. Santamaria established the AD2000 journal in the late 1980s. It's an obviously Catholic publication published by the Thomas Moore Centre in Melbourne. A quality journal aimed squarely at and informative to Catholic adherents, it is of limited interest to the general public. What reaches the general public is mainstream media.
But "Houston, we have a problem"...
Mainstream media a "problem"
In a revealing narrative, loyal Catholic Professor Margaret Somerville, now at the (Catholic) University of Notre Dame Australia, laid out the critical importance of the media to the outcome of VAD law reform in her 2001 book Death Talk: The case against euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (especially see Chapter 19).
In it, she highlights the Catholic communications problem (without mentioning Catholicism), railing against what she claimed even then was the mostly "small-l liberal" mainstream media as resistant to religious messages. She confirmed that religious media are much more accommodating of the "pro-life" world view.
She specifically noted the importance of "framing" the issues to "significantly influence political decisions", complaining that "anti-euthanasia arguments do not make dramatic and compelling television". She then went on to outline a collection of useful anti-VAD "frames", which were wholly consistent with the Vatican's position and language.
Indeed, you'd be forgiven for thinking Professor Somerville wrote the church's framings, because she's given pre-eminent billing over the Vatican itself in the Catholic Archdiocese of Perth's website for bioethics, the LJ Goody Bioethics Centre. Of further relevance is that the Catholic Archbishop of Perth is, along with the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, the ultimate authority controlling the University of Notre Dame Australia, where Somerville is a Professor.
(Incidentally, the website's home page "What's new" announcement is more than 5½ years out of date, which gives the impression that the Centre was a hasty, event-specific confection whose purpose has long since passed.)
Professor Margaret Somerville gets pre-eminent billing on Catholic bioethics, above the Vatican itself.
Don't mention the war religion
Amongst Professor Somerville's numerous writings slamming VAD, some stand out more than others. One that does is a 2008 editorial titled Death talk in a secular age, in which she vigorously encourages religious opponents to "formulate a moral argument against euthanasia without resorting to religion" [my emphasis]. And who published this editorial? Why, it was MercatorNet!
Did the Catholic church take note of Professor Somerville's strategy? As I've pointed out before, Mr Ben Smith, Director of the Life, Marriage and Family Office at the Catholic Archdiocese of Hobart, fails to mention who he really is in at least two purportedly "independent" groups fulminating against Tasmania's current VAD Bill. One of the groups he leads, Live & Die Well, encourages people to write objections to their parliamentarians, but expressly commands "DO NOT use religious arguments."
Professor Somerville was also a keynote speaker at a 2008 conference of media professionals in Toronto, in which she advised journalists and editors how to "frame" the debate against VAD. But these were not just any journalists and editors at large. They were Catholic journalists and editors: members of the Association of Roman Catholic Communicators of Canada, whom she schooled alongside a number of Catholic church officials. The conference's title? "Proclaim it from the rooftops!"
Catholic Professor Margaret Somerville has been central to the Catholic church's hostile "framing" of VAD, and helping media specialists spread that framing through the media.
More religious frustrations
Over the years Professor Somerville continued to build upon the theme, including in her 2015 book, Bird on an Ethics Wire: Battles about values in the culture wars. She escalated her criticism of the "intense tolerance" of "the now ubiquitous moral relativism" as an illustration of how VAD law reform demonstrates what happens "if we take a purely secular approach not balanced by religious views."
A curated garden
You will have noticed by now significant common threads in favour of Catholic "truth"; against "relativism"; calls to evangelise using the media; calls to avoid and actual avoidance of religion in argumentation; avoidance of revealing religious connections in by-lines; and a united portfolio of Church-friendly framings of VAD by a busy theatre of players.
Given the church's perceptions of a hostile mainstream media, is it any wonder that some devout Catholic contributors, and deeply Catholic media outlets, hide their religious petticoats and zucchetti while publishing grave misinformation in the curry of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) against VAD?
This isn't a random jungle.
No, it's a curated garden, tended to by what we might call the 'Catholic communicators guild'.
Failure to mention deep Catholic roots behind purported "secular" attacks on VAD law reform is a strategy of the 'Catholic communicators guild'.
Conclusion
In this review, I've revealed only some of the deep Catholic connections that resulted in a shocking appropriation of the death of an elderly woman with cancer, using misinformation and framing wholly consistent with the Catholic church's evangelisation, but withholding key information about those deep religious underpinnings.
It's clear the Catholic church understands that its religious arguments are unpersuasive to the wider community. It's also important that the public and legislators understand how religious forces attempt to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt about VAD law reform by giving the appearance of secular neutrality to its messages.
Mrs Dugdale’s gran deserved better than to be appropriated for the aggrandisement of an agenda that is clearly at odds with her own beliefs and values… and the values of the overwhelming majority of Australians.
The F filesPosted on Tuesday 9th April 2019 at 7:15am
An article in 'Anasthesia' did NOT find high rates of regaining consciousness in contemporary VAD practice.
A recent article by Sinmyee et al, "Legal and ethical implications of defining an optimum means of achieving unconsciousness in assisted dying", published in the journal Anasthesia1 was an attempt to identify a professional standard for inducing and maintaining unconsciousness prior to voluntary assisted dying (VAD) death, a laudable aim.
However, the authors’ underlying premise of contemporary VAD practice failing to reliably maintain unconsciousness — potentially leading to 'inhumane deaths' — is not established by their cited sources. They cite exactly three sources to establish their claim: their citations 31, 32 and 33.
Citation 31 — Iserson et al 1992
This is a qualitative article by Ken Iserson and colleagues.2 Published in 1992, it outlines a single case of assisted suicide, forming the backdrop for several Californian ethics committees to comment.
Not only was this a single case rather tha a sample of dozens or hundreds of cases, but assisted dying was illegal right across the USA in 1992 and earlier. Therefore, the article is wholly uninformative to contemporary practice under assisted dying laws.
Citation 32 — Groenewoud et al 2000
This is a study by Johanna Groenewoud and colleagues.3 Published in 2000, it analyses Dutch data collected between 1990 to 1996 — long before the Netherlands’ 2001 euthanasia Act, which came into effect in 2002.
In 1997 the Dutch medical association (KNMG) formed the Support and Consultation on Euthanasia in Amsterdam (SCEA) network to assist doctors implement the practice more reliably. The successful program was made national (…in the Netherlands, SCEN) in 1999, with a four-year implementation resulting in strong consultation and positive outcomes.4
In addition, the KNMG and Dutch pharmacy association (KNMP) have improved their guidelines for euthanasia practice since 1996: in 1998, 2007 and most recently in 2012.5 Independent studies show that use of opioids (inappropriate method) was high in the Netherlands in 1995-96,6 but replaced entirely with (appropriate) barbiturates and neuromuscular relaxants in reported VAD cases in 2010.7
The most recent published report of the Dutch Euthanasia Commission, which assesses every reported case of VAD, did not note any failures of the VAD procedures.8
Citation 33 — Lalmohamed & Horikx 2010
This is a study by Arief Lalmohamed and Annamieke Horikx, published in 2010, of doctor responses to a survey the KNMP conducted between 2007 and 2009.9 The study reported on issues with the storage, preparation and administration of VAD drugs. It noted that the recommended dose of Thiopental was increased from 1500mg to 2000mg so that patient-dependent dosages need not be calculated.
The study noted one negative experience for some patients: pain on injection of Thiopental. Recommendations were made for preparation and administration of the drug to avoid this problem. No other negative patient outcomes were reported.
The upshot
Thus, of the three sources the authors employed to make the case of a significant and systematic problem in the conduct of contemporary VAD cases, none did so: the first was a single case outside the law in the early 1990s, the second a study from the early to mid 1990s from whence contemporary practice has greatly improved, and the third a 2010 pharmacological investigation that found some patients experiencing pain on injection and recommending improvements to avoid it. Nevertheless, Sinmyee et al concluded that:
“For all these forms of assisted dying, there appears to be a relatively high incidence of vomiting (up to 10%), prolongation of death (up to 7 days), and reawakening from coma (up to 4%), constituting failure of unconsciousness.”
These assertions are highly misleading in regard to contemporary VAD practice.
The most recent Oregon Death With Dignity Act annual report, covering all cases from 1997 to early 2019 reports that just eight of 1,467 deaths where lethal medication was consumed, resulted in the patient regaining consciousness.10 That’s an efficacy rate of 99.5%, a high standard for a medical procedure.
There have been no cases of regaining consciousness in Washington state under their Death With Dignity Act.11
In comparison, regaining consciousness under professional surgical anaesthesia is a problem12 with an incidence rate of around 0.13% in the USA13 though the rate appears to be much lower in the UK.14 Even over-the-counter analgesics like paracetamol, ibuprofen and aspirin have significant adverse effects rates of 14.5%, 13.7% and 18.7% (respectively).15
From unsubstantiated to polemical
While Sinmyee and colleagues were attempting, via their article in Anasthesia, to argue the case for improved VAD practice, it was inevitable that ginger groups opposing the legalisation of VAD would commandeer cherry-picked extracts from the article to further their cause, painting a picture of disaster and mayhem.
Sure enough, the Catholic-backed Euthanasia Prevention Coalition’s Alex Schadenberg ran with it, cherry picking the “190 times higher” rate the authors claim for “failure of unconsciousness” using their invalid citations. Schadenberg conspiratorially concluded that “the laws are designed to cover-up [sic] problems with the law”.16
Also, predictably, Catholic-backed HOPE’s Branka van der Linden followed suit, plucking quotes like “…failure rates of assisted dying by these other methods seems extraordinarily high” without similar context.17
It’s disappointing that the original article with its misleading statistics based on figures plucked from a single historical article and in the absence of considering significant intervening improvements, passed peer review. Its misinformation led to more nonsense being energetically pedalled by anti-VAD campaigners.
References
Sinmyee, S, Pandit, VJ, Pascual, JM, Dahan, A, Heidegger, T, Kreienbühl, G, Lubarsky, DA & Pandit, JJ 2019, 'Legal and ethical implications of defining an optimum means of achieving unconsciousness in assisted dying', Anaesthesia, 74(5), pp. 630-637.
Iserson, KV, Rasinski Gregory, D, Christensen, K & Ofstein, MR 1992, 'Willful death and painful decisions: A failed assisted suicide', Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 1(2), pp. 147-158.
Groenewoud, JH, van der Heide, A, Onwuteaka-Philipsen, B, Willems, DL, van der Maas, PJ & van der Wal, G 2000, 'Clinical problems with the performance of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the Netherlands', New England Journal of Medicine, 342(8), pp. 551-556.
Jansen-Van Der Weide, MC, Onwuteaka-Philipsen, BD & Van Der Wal, G 2004, 'Implementation of the project 'Support and Consultation on Euthanasia in the Netherlands' (SCEN)', Health Policy, 69(3), pp. 365-373.
KNMG/KNMP 2012, Guidelines for the practice of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, Utrecht, pp. 56.
van der Maas, PJ, van der Wal, G, Haverkate, I, de Graaff, CL, Kester, JG, Onwuteaka-Philipsen, BD, van der Heide, A, Bosma, JM & Willems, DL 1996, 'Euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and other medical practices involving the end of life in the Netherlands, 1990-1995', N Engl J Med, 335(22), pp. 1699-705.
Onwuteaka-Philipsen, BD, Brinkman-Stoppelenburg, A, Penning, C, de Jong-Krul, GJF, van Delden, JJM & van der Heide, A 2012, 'Trends in end-of-life practices before and after the enactment of the euthanasia law in the Netherlands from 1990 to 2010: a repeated cross-sectional survey', The Lancet, 380(9845), pp. 908-915.
Lalmohamed, A & Horikx, A 2010, '[Experience with euthanasia since 2007: Analysis of problems with execution] Ervaringen met euthanastica sinds 2007: Onderzoek naar problemen in de uitvoering', Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd, 154(A1983), pp. 1-6.
Oregon Health Authority 2019, Oregon Death With Dignity Act: 2018 data summary, Department of Human Services, Portland, pp. 16.
Washington State Department of Health 2018, Washington State Department of Health 2017 Death with Dignity Act Report, Olympia, WA, pp. 15.
Cook, TM, Andrade, J, Bogod, DG, Hitchman, JM, Jonker, WR, Lucas, N, Mackay, JH, Nimmo, AF, O'Connor, K, O'Sullivan, EP, Paul, RG, Palmer, JH, Plaat, F, Radcliffe, JJ, Sury, MR, Torevell, HE, Wang, M, Hainsworth, J, Pandit, JJ, Royal College of, A, the Association of Anaesthetists of Great, B & Ireland 2014, 'The 5th National Audit Project (NAP5) on accidental awareness during general anaesthesia: patient experiences, human factors, sedation, consent and medicolegal issues', Anaesthesia, 69(10), pp. 1102-16.
Sebel, PS, Bowdle, TA, Ghoneim, MM, Rampil, IJ, Padilla, RE, Gan, TJ & Domino, KB 2004, 'The incidence of awareness during anesthesia: A multicenter United States study', Anesthesia & Analgesia, 99(3), pp. 833-839.
Thomas, G & Cook, TM 2016, 'The United Kingdom National Audit Projects: a narrative review', Southern African Journal of Anaesthesia and Analgesia, 22(2), pp. 38-45.
Moore, N, Ganse, EV, Parc, J-ML, Wall, R, Schneid, H, Farhan, M, Verrière, F & Pelen, F 1999, 'The PAIN Study: Paracetamol, Aspirin and Ibuprofen new tolerability study', Clinical Drug Investigation, 18(2), pp. 89-98.
Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Sunday 25th November 2018 at 9:03pm
The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) has quit the World Medical Association (WMA) over assisted dying and plagiarism.
The WMA has long held that assisted dying is unethical and must be condemned by the medical profession, despite a significant proportion of contemporary doctors believing it to be a valid and ethical option in restricted circumstances.
Assisted dying is lawful in Canada, where it is called Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).
The CMA has resigned from the WMA, citing a bad case of plagiarism by the current WMA head, but also reporting its considerable displeasure with the WMA's one-sided policy on MAiD.
This is the first example of a member medical society resigning from the WMA in part due to its assisted dying policy, and speaks volumes about medicine's slow but inevitable move to recognise patient well as doctor moral perspectives.
Predictably, Dr Kulvinder Gill (AKA Kulvinder Kaur) from tiny ginger group “Concerned Ontario Doctors”,1 which is strongly opposed to Canada's asssited dying law, slammed the CMA's resignation, claiming that the withdrawal leaves Canada's doctors "without international ethical oversight."
It's shabby framing to impute that Canadian doctors can't practice ethically without some kind of international Big Brother tapping in to their stethoscopes. Perhaps "Concerned Ontario Doctors" believes the Vatican should be monitoring and dictating doctors' conduct?
Predictably too, the Catholic church, with Dr Gill among them, as been actively advancing the right for doctors to ignore legal and valid patient requests to be considered for MAiD, refusing to refer them to other doctors for assessment.
The WMA will eventually have to update its stance to neutral, to honour the range of deeply-held perspectives across the medical spectrum instead of attempting to impose the views of just one end.
1 I was unable to find any other member or spokesperson for this “group” other than Kulvinder.
Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Sunday 12th August 2018 at 7:40am
Margaret Somerville's latest and repeated misinformation deserves censure.
If there’s one thing you have to admire about Margo Somerville, Catholic Professor of Bioethics at the University of Notre Dame Australia, it’s her persistence in the face of being called out for misrepresenting facts about assisted dying. She’s at it again.
Today in the Sydney Morning Herald, Somerville was quoted spruiking her credentials via a recent publication in the peer-reviewed Journal of Palliative Care.1 Since I study the professional literature, I’m aware of said article, which was published several weeks ago. It's a shocker.
The authority bias
Somerville shows herself to again to not care much for the full facts. She seems more comfortable with calling on the ‘authority bias’: advancing her credentials as a “Professor of Bioethics” along with nine “international counterparts” in the authorship of said paper.
I’ll spare you a blow-by-blow analysis of how the JPC article skilfully employs reassuringly professional tones to stake a wholly one-sided and shockingly ill-informed stance against assisted dying law reform.
A very telling example of misinformation
Let’s look at just one very telling example: the statistics that the authors quote about non-voluntary euthanasia (NVE) rates in Belgium and the Netherlands. NVE is a doctor’s act of hastening a patient’s death without a current request from the patient. The authors say that:
“Administration of lethal drugs without patient request occurred in 1.7% of all deaths in the Flanders region of Belgium alone and 0.2% of all deaths in the Netherlands.”
Are these figures correct? Yes indeed they are... as at the date of the cited sources. However, they are just cherry-picked tidbits from a larger and very different smorgasboard of evidence.
A throbbing great falsehood with warts
Do the figures mean what the authors say they mean? In no uncertain terms, absolutely and incontrovertibly not.
The authors don’t just coyly suggest, imply or impute that those NVE rates are caused by the legalisation of assisted dying, they directly claim it. Right in front the statistics, they state categorically that:
“Allowing voluntary euthanasia has led to non-voluntary euthanasia.”
Let’s put this the politest way we can: that’s a throbbing great falsehood with warts on it. The authors would have known this if they’d paid attention to published research facts beyond their own opinions.
Comprehensively ignoring peer-reviewed facts
Had the paper’s authors (and the supposed peer reviewers) actually known much about the subject matter, they wouldn’t have referred to those figures, because they’re massively unhelpful to the case the authors attempt to prosecute. Here are three central published facts about the case:
Fact 1: Before the Netherlands’ euthanasia Act came into effect, the NVE rate was 0.7%. Then in the next research round with the Act in place it had dropped to 0.5%, and the round after that, to 0.2%. The last is the figure the authors quote as evidence that “VE leads to NVE”, despite the fact that the rate had massively dropped, not risen.
Fact 2: Before Belgium’s euthanasia Act came into effect, the NVE rate was 3.2% [typo 3.5% corrected]. Then in the next research round with the Act in place it had dropped to 1.7%, the figure the authors quote. Again, the rate had massively dropped, not risen.
Fact 3: The rate of NVE in the United Kingdom was researched around the same time as the later Dutch figures, and found to be 0.3%.2 The UK has never had an assisted dying law,so the 0.3% NVE rate, which is higher than the Dutch 0.2% rate the authors quote, can't have been caused by one.
So, these three key published facts — known to most of us with an interest in lawful assisted dying — squarely contradict the authors' VE-causing-NVE claim. It's at the very least astonishing and inexcusable that all the numerous authors and peer reviewers of this “scholarly” article either didn’t know, or “overlooked”, them.
Indeed, despite holding one of the world’s largest scholarly libraries on published assisted dying research, I know of no study that establishes a VE-to-NVE link. All the evidence is contrary.
Not the first time
We could perhaps be a little forgiving if the authors just got a statistic wrong. After all, we're all human. But there are ten authors, plus peer reviewers. And there’s the egregious offence the authors committed in making an unequivocal but false claim about the data. Did none of them know what they were talking about or bother to check?
In this case I’m wholly unforgiving. That's because I’ve called Somerville out multiple times before for misrepresenting data, including for misrepresenting Belgian and Dutch NVE data precisely as she does again in this JPC article. We’ve even publicly exchanged words about it via the ABC’s Religion and Ethics portal. It’s not like she simply didn’t know.
I’ve also called Somerville out for wrongly claiming that Dutch Minister of Health Dr Els Borst regretted the euthanasia law; and wrongly claiming the Dutch elderly go to German hospitals and nursing homes for healthcare for fear of being euthanased in the Netherlands, including that NVE actually does occur in German nursing homes, despite, as Somerville notes, “their strict prohibition on euthanasia”.
This rubbish deserves censure and ridicule
While I argue strongly that different views about assisted dying law reform are welcome in a robust democracy, repeatedly spreading such egregious misinformation about assisted dying is an embarrassment to and unworthy of scholarly attribution to professorship. Such rubbish deserves to be rejected, censured and ridiculed.
References
Sprung, CL, Somerville, MA, Radbruch, L, Collet, NS, Duttge, G, Piva, JP, Antonelli, M, Sulmasy, DP, Lemmens, W & Ely, EW 2018, 'Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia: Emerging issues from a global perspective', Journal of Palliative Care.
Seale, C 2009, 'End-of-life decisions in the UK involving medical practitioners', Palliat Med, 23(3), pp. 198-204.
Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Saturday 11th August 2018 at 11:33pm
Plenty of misinformation will be advanced to oppose Senator David Leyonhjelm's Restoring Territory Rights Bill.
In 1996 the Northern Territory Rights of the Terminally Ill Act (ROTI) came into effect. Just four people had used the Act when seven months later an Act of the Federal Parliament extinguished the NT law, by cancelling the Territories’ authority to enact it.
This week, the Senate [federal parliament] debates the Restoring Territory Rights (Assisted Suicide Legislation) Bill, sponsored by libertarian Senator David Leyonhjelm. If the Bill passes both houses, the Territories will again have the authority to legislate the matter of assisted dying.
Opponents of lawful assisted dying have been sharpening their knives to ensure that Senator Leyonhjelm’s Bill fails and that Territorians remain second-class citizens. In this post I expose one of the desperate and disgraceful pieces of misinformation opponents use to try and curry fear about law reform.
Opponent signals
There are signals from many quarters that assisted dying opponents are dragging out the tired old argument that indigenous Australians are too fearful of assisted dying to allow reinstatement of the Territories’ legislative authority.
The signals are clear, though so far mostly behind the scenes. Nevertheless, they predict a full onslaught of invalid “fear” claims in the parliamentary debate this week.
Populist beginning of the misinformation
Since the NT ROTI Act there have been ongoing claims that indigenous (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Australians are wholly and deeply fearful of assisted dying law. A chief flag-waver of this proposition is Jesuit Priest Father Frank Brennan. He’s not only argued this line repeatedly in public, but promoted it to at least one parliamentary inquiry.
Fr Brennan likes to frame this argument to suggest that it’s uniquely substantive and persuasive, while other highly relevant information is merely “suggestion”.
“There was a suggestion these fears were whipped up by the churches and other conservative groups.” — Fr Brank Brennan
The “indigenous fears” opinion has been widely disseminated by other Catholics, including now-disgracedFr John Fleming in a paper on behalf of the Catholic Southern Cross Bioethics Institute, and by Mr Paul Russell, Director of “HOPE”, a ginger group established by the Catholic Australian Family Association.
Classic cherry-picking
I’ve called out Mr Russell and others before for cherry-picking information to suit their arguments. And here we are again. In this blog, Mr Russell correctly reports that indigenous NT parliamentarian Mr Wes Lanhupuy voted in favour of the ROTI Act, but dismisses his vote as the result of “pressure”.
What Mr Russell disgracefully omits from his plug is that Mr Lanhupuy was directly involved in the consultation of indigenous communities, and said this in his parliamentary speech:
“The church has been a major voice. … I heard in the community that some of the churches were telling people that they should not support the bill basically because of their religious beliefs. No information whatsoever was given as a reason for that. No information was given whereby people could determine their own beliefs. That was disappointing.” — NT indigenous parliamentarian Mr Wes Lanhupuy (Hansard)
Disgraceful religious prejudice
But there’s more. At the time the federal parliament was debating its Bill to overturn the ROTI Act in 1997, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee conducted a formal investigation and published a Senate report, Consideration of legislation referred to the Committee: Euthanasia Laws Bill 1996. Its 204 pages make interesting reading.
For example, Mr Creed Lovegrove, a former senior Northern Territory public servant leading the Native Affairs Office, reported to the Senate Committee:
“I express my concern, not at the right of certain ideologists to have their say, but at the misrepresentations some were making to people over whom they have an emotional hold. Where this group happens to be Aboriginal, I believe some of the frightening lies they were told about the subject were a psychological and emotional exploitation of them, as blatant as any that has ever occurred in the Territory.” — p 44
…and reported to him by a group of senior and influential Aboriginals:
“They reckon the government is going to round up all the real sick people and those with V.D. and things like that and finish them off.” — p 45
…and on page 44 of the report, the Northern Territory government noted that at least one Aboriginal community wanted to hear the full story about euthanasia, not just the Church story.
Fake news — avoiding healthcare
There were also widespread claims that indigenous Northern Territorians were avoiding presenting to medical centres for healthcare for fear of being euthanased. However, the Senate report noted (p 52) that the claim was controversial, and that the Northern Territory government had provided statistics to show no significant decrease in presentations for treatment.
In a classic opponent manoeuvre when the data yet again didn’t fit the story, it was then claimed (p 52) that future data could show a decrease in presentations.
Morally bankrupt argument
But that’s a morally bankrupt argument. You don’t deny Jack the right to drive a car because Jill has an ill-informed phobia that Jack’s right is likely to contribute to her own death. Rather, the ethical approach is to provide Jack with his right and to provide Jill with education.
And that’s precisely what the NT government did. In today’s money, it stumped up $500k for education programs, and those programs were beginning to take effect. In testimony to the Committee, Reverend Dr Djiniyini Gondarra (opposed to the legislation) conceded that the education efforts had been somewhat effective in overcoming fears about the ROTI Act (p 52).
Ironic reverse discrimination
Perhaps one of the most ironic aspects of church-led fear of the ROTI Act was the Act’s “reverse discrimination” itself. The Act required, if the doctor and patient did not share the same first language, that a qualified and authorised translator be engaged before the patient might qualify for an assisted death.
Given the rarity of qualified and authorised translators, especially in remote communities, indigenous Northern Territorians would have had significantly less access to use the law than their white, city-based fellow citizens.
Putting it into perspective
Setting aside the dreadfully misinformed fear of assisted dying law and its stoking by churches, the question arises as to the prevalence of indigenous residents in the Territories: both Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory. I’ve retrieved Australian Bureau of Statistics data from the 2016 census to answer that question (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Australian Territory indigenous populations Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2016 census
Indigenous peoples represent a quarter of the population in the NT (25.5%), and a tiny minority (1.6%) in the ACT. Across the two Territories, that’s 10.3% of the population. Even if all the indigenous citizens opposed assisted dying law reform (which is clearly not the case), their impact on overall attitude would be minor.
By way of comparison, most national polls find around 12% of Australians opposed to assisted dying law reform. And, as I’ve factually demonstrated, almost all of that is faith-based. Such ‘fears’ are not a valid reason to prohibit others from pursuing a choice they deeply feel is moral and justified.
Playing the race card
Indeed, if opponents were intent on justifying the denial of a parliament to legislate for assisted dying on the basis of supposed indigenous attitude — playing the race card — then they must also by corollary campaign for the denial of State parliaments to legislate. That's because there are nearly four times as many indigenous Australians in NSW (216,170) and three times as many in Queensland (186,483) as there are in the Northern Territory (58,246) [2016 census data].
To argue one and not the other is to flip-flop.
Contact your Senators now
Church-whipped fear about assisted dying law amongst indigenous Australians is appalling and to be condemned, as is spreading false claims about a supposed reduction in presentations for medical care.
Senators will be inundated with false claims as they contemplate the Leyonhjelm Bill — including that indigenous Territorians are terrified of assisted dying law. (Lyeonhjelm’s Bill doesn’t legalise assisted dying: it only restores Territory parliament rights to consider the reform.)
It’s critical that Senators also hear from supporters of Territory rights — that Territorians not be treated as second-class citizens compared to State-based citizens.
To that end YOU can do something right now! Use the Go Gentle Australiasubmission page to send a message of support to your State or Territory Senators now. Go Gentle make it so easy, by showing you who your Senators are by merely entering your address.
Disclaimer: I do notclaim, suggest, imply or impute that any individuals named in this article were personally or individually responsible for, or were involved in, any misinformation being provided to indigenous Australians about assisted dying law.
Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Tuesday 13th February 2018 at 9:37pm
A DyingForChoice.com editorial appears in the Jan/Feb 2018 edition of LivingNow
A DyingForChoice.com editorial in the Jan/Feb 2018 issue of lifestyle magazine, LivingNow, explains why assisted dying law reform in Australia has taken so long, and why it will accelerate from here.
Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Monday 13th November 2017 at 6:28pm
The deeply-flawed Jones & Paton, and Kheriaty articles purporting to show suicide contagion.
In the ongoing political campaign against assisted dying law reform, opponents have spread one piece of egregious misinformation after another. One of the most common is supposed “suicide contagion” from assisted dying laws to general suicide, a theory popularised by Catholic Prof. Margaret Somerville. Despite the nonsense of her claim being comprehensively exposed, she still believes that her opinion “will prove to be correct.” Two journal papers published in 2015 purported to, but didn't, establish suicide contagion in Oregon and Washington states.
Assisted dying law reform opponents are still relying on a 2015 paper by Catholics David Jones and David Paton, bolstered by a glowing editorial of it written by Catholic psychiatrist Aaron Kheriaty, published in the Southern Medical Journal, as continued ‘proof’ of suicide contagion theory, at least in respect of USA states Oregon and Washington (since data from other lawful jurisdictions contradicts the theory).
Jones & Paton’s article reported the use of econometric modelling to test for ‘suicide contagion’ from Oregon and Washington’s Death With Dignity Act (DWDA) laws. But, in an exposé to be published this week, no fewer than ten ‘deadly sins’ of the study are peeled back to reveal the rot within.
The very deep flaws and biases of the original articles include:
Cherry-picking information from cited sources to argue their case, while omitting information from the same sources that contradicted their case;
Including test and control subjects whose consequence was likely to maximise the likelihood of finding a positive association;
Demonstrating a poor understanding of suicide and its risk and protective factors and failing to control for most confounding effects in their econometric model ‘pudding’;
Overegging the “causative suicide contagion” interpretation when no correlation between assisted dying and general suicide rates was found; and
Failing to use direct, robust and readily-available evidence that showed their study couldn’t possibly have hoped to return scientifically valid “contagion” proof.
The USA’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), of which Oregon is a founding member, shows that even if “assisted dying suicide contagion theory” were true, fewer than 2 of 855 Oregon “total suicides” in 2014 could have been attributed to “contagion” from DWDAs.
Further, both Oregon and Washington state rankings for suicide rates have improved, not deteriorated, since their DWDAs came into effect, while the suicide ranking for a relevant control state — Oklahoma — has deteriorated substantially over the same time.
Ultimately, through numerous and deep methodological flaws, the Jones, Paton and Kheriaty articles reveal a bias to promote “assisted dying suicide contagion theory” while ignoring the robust evidence from multiple lawful jurisdictions, including in their own ‘study,’ that contradict it.
The exposé, titled “The ten deadly sins of Jones, Paton and Kheriaty on ‘suicide contagion’,” will be published by DyingForChoice.com later in the week.
Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Thursday 27th July 2017 at 11:52pm
Research results must be judged in relation to the study's methodology.
In his latest blog, titled “Who are you going to trust?”, anti-assisted dying lobbyist Mr Paul Russell says:
“Polling noted today in the Australian shows a significant level of distrust in our political classes to get the issue of euthanasia and assisted dying right.”
He then goes on to quote some select statistics from said poll. In his blog, he mentions nothing about the sponsorship or conduct of the poll. After some searching, I found no other reference to said poll on his ‘HOPE’ website.
This is rather curious, because The Australian article he quotes, points out that the ‘poll’ was commissioned by him (his website is called ‘HOPE’).
Thus, Mr Russell tries to add credibility to his ‘poll results’ in his blog by citing only that it has been reported in a national newspaper. This ‘quote-someone-else-so-it-must-be-authoritative’ rhetorical strategy has been used before by opponents of assisted dying (see Box at end).
But as Mr Russell has himself promoted — happily republishing the opinion of the CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship (UK) — “opinion polls add up to very little.” That’s quite true… when they’re poorly designed and run, including the big no-no, ‘push-polling’, in which the researcher attempts to get the answer they want by crafting questions more likely to get it.
I searched hard for any reference to the methodology of said ‘poll’, but was unable to identify any despite a diligent search. Therefore, we don’t know what approach Mr Russell took: robust or otherwise.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument (and the absence of public evidence) that a poll of some kind was actually conducted. If it were a truly legitimate poll, you’d think that Mr Russell would be shouting about the study from his own rooftop (the ‘HOPE’ website). But so far, he hasn’t.
Mr Russell, while quoting statistics, has said absolutely nothing about the methodology — that I can find via a quite diligent search.
Results can only be interpreted in light of how the research was actually conducted, so quoting a 'study' while failing to publish its methodology in full is an absolute no-no. It only invites derision.
Rebecca Urban, for The Australian, quotes a number of ‘statistics’ from the ‘poll’ seemingly without question. But she’s hardly to blame: she’s skilled at journalism, not primary research.
So, for the benefit of Paul Russell, Rebecca Urban and all journalists reporting claimed statistics, here’s your minimum standard of conduct if the public are not to guffaw at the claims. All reported results must be in relation to properly disclosed methodology:
Who commissioned the research? (✔ Ms Urban reports who)
Who conducted — actually carried out — the research (e.g. a reputable research company)?
What precise population were respondents drawn from, how were they recruited, and screened in or out? What were the counts and percentage participation (approached/participated)?
What were the dates of the fieldwork?
What procedures were used to establish and maintain the authenticity of who was sampled (e.g. if an online poll, could people from anywhere technically participate in this Victorian poll)?
How was the questionnaire administered (e.g. paper self-complete, online, CATI)?
What was the script of stimuli administered to respondents? In other words, what prompts were given and what questions were asked: exact order and wording?
What results were obtained for each question (i.e. full rather than selective crosstabs)?
Until Mr Russell publishes in full how his ‘poll’ was conducted, the only honourable course of action for him to pursue is to withdraw the claimed results.
Until then, we can only see them as untrustworthy and a bit of a joke.
Rhetorical tactic — “Not” quoting yourself
This rhetorical tactic is also used by Mr Russell’s fellow Catholic, Prof. Margaret Somerville. For example, in her 2015 book Bird on an Ethics Wire, in relation to the supposed (but fanciful) fear of being euthanized in the Netherlands if adequate pain management is accepted, Somerville says in Chapter 4:
“It has been alleged that Dutch physicians have interpreted patients’ consent to pain management as consent to euthanasia.38”
If you’re like most people, you’d assume, given the effort of a citation (38), that an independent source had made the statement based on some evidence. Indeed, if you look at reference 38 you’ll see that the author is Lauren Vogel, and the source article is in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. All sounds like solid, legit stuff, doesn’t it?
However, Ms Vogel is a journalist, not a Dutch medic or a researcher, and what she reports in relation to Somerville’s claim is merely a quote of what someone said. And who is that someone? Why, it’s Margaret Somerville — what a coincidence!
Somerville could have just said “I’ve argued this before…”, but instead gives a seemingly robust reference to a source that has the appearance of independence and scholarship. Yet obviously she knows that the source is merely herself saying so.
Let’s be clear: something is not true just because someone alleges it. Even if they allege it twice or more. And happen cite themselves via someone else in the process.
Blog by Neil FrancisPosted on Tuesday 13th June 2017 at 2:38am
The Age reports a 'gloves off' campaign of misinformation
Both the Herald Sun and The Age reported last week that religious anti-assisted dying crusaders are running a 'gloves off' campaign in Victoria.
Religious forces are gathering once again to attempt to thwart the views of the great majority of Victorians in favour of assisted dying law reform.
Matt Johnston in the Herald Sun quoted Paul Russell, a long-term figure in Catholic circles, and Greek Orthodox Bishop Ezekiel, in statements against assisted dying.
Farrah Thomazin in The Age quoted religious stalwarts Margaret Tighe of Right To Life, and the Australian Christian Lobby, in further statements against assisted dying.
The crux of the story is that 'pollsters' claim to have run a survey in Victoria. They refuse to be identified. They refuse to publish their methodology. And they refuse to publish all their results. Enough said.
They cherry-pick an item from their supposed poll to claim that 33% of Victorians who oppose assisted dying will change their vote against a supporting politician at the next election. They neglect to mention that only a tiny minority of Victorians actually oppose assisted dying. Their analysis is astonishingly superficial, even assuming they ran a proper, robust poll and didn't manufacture the numbers themselves.
They then use this tidbit of 'data' to put the fear of electoral defeat into politicians who will soon to face an assisted dying Bill in the Victorian Parliament.
What rubbish. Assisted dying (AD) opponents seem to be utterly shameless in misrepresenting and distorting cherry-picked data to push their religious agenda — which they pretend isn't religious.
The real situation in respect of AD is the exact opposite of their claims as I show in a proper, robust analysis of legitimate data, demonstrating that:
A massive 78.9% of Victorians support AD, with only a tiny 8.1% opposed. Strong supporters outnumber strong opponents by more than ten to one.
Significantly more supporters of AD believe that law reform is personally important, than opponents believe the status quo (no law) is personally important.
At a general election, far more Victorian voters will punish Members who oppose the AD Bill than will punish Members who support it (3.5 to 1 overall, 2.4 to 1 for the Liberal/National Coalition and 6.6 to 1 for Labor).
The co-sponsors of Victoria’s 2008 AD Bill were returned with greatly increased majorities (including relative to their party’s overall performance) despite campaigns against them by anti-AD crusaders.
So that Victorian politicians are not misled, I have forwarded my report to the Victorian Government's Cabinet and other selected members of Parliament.
The only way in which this campaign could be called 'gloves-off' is that opponents, lurking around with their shadowy misinformation, don't want to get bullshit on their mittens. Hands seem to be much easier to wash. And hide.