It is no wonder the ACT government wants to take over the Catholic-run Calvary Hospital.

Faithful Catholics are one of the last lines of resistance to the culture of death creeping through Australian politics.

It became clearer today why these pesky pro-life hold-outs must be expunged from the health system.

News broke that the radical Labor-Greens administration that rules Canberra is pushing for children and dementia patients to be eligible to be killed by euthanasia.

Yes, it’s true.

Proponents of euthanasia always bristled when pro-life advocates said it was a slippery slope.

But in the ACT, they apply the grease.

Alarm bells should ring because, in this leftist-libertarian-right utopia, the Health Minister, Rachel Stephen-Smith, has been shunted so that assisted suicide policy is now run by the territory’s Human Rights Minister, Tara Cheyne.

In the past five years, all states have legalised euthanasia limiting the killing to adults with a terminal illness who are expected to die within 6 to 12 months.

They are also supposed to be in intractable pain.

After the ACT lowers the bar, watch the other states follow.

Given the advances in modern palliative care, very few people would ever qualify for assisted suicide if palliative care was properly funded, and the guidelines were properly adhered to.

Sadly, Australia’s politicians from the radical left and libertarian right have taken the cheap and nasty option of liberalising assisted suicide.

Now the ACT government, which acts as a Petri dish for experimental social policies (the latest is free abortions funded by the taxpayer), wants to lower the eligible age for euthanasia to just 14.

Why stop there?

Why stop at dementia? Why not euthanise the mentally ill as they do in Canada and then produce macabre government reports that document the savings to the health system?

How can a 14-year-old or a dementia patient be kept safe from subtle coercion, however well-meaning, from a health professional who sees an easier way out than the expensive business of providing hospice care?

How can a dementia patient be kept safe from a family member who might just want them gone?

ACT Human Rights Minister claims the community wants the age lowered and the access bar to dementia patients removed.

She told the Australian she had ‘heard very clearly from the community that 18 is considered to be an arbitrary limit’.

This of course begs the question, why is 14 not an arbitrary limit?

Cheyne said dementia would not be included in the ACT’s initial euthanasia legislation but she said ‘given the strength of the support in the ACT … I will publicly commit our government to consider this issue further’.

One wonders what this consultation process was like, and if all the facts about euthanasia and palliative care options were on the table.

Diagnosis of a terminal illness is far from an exact science. Most end-of-life pain can be managed with dignity. Sure, in some rare cases, it can’t be managed perfectly.

But how many wrongful deaths will occur to make way for a tiny minority of hard cases? Are the early graves of vulnerable people, who through coercion or a sense of ‘duty to die’, simply collateral damage on the altar of libertarian personal autonomy?

Disturbingly, the Catholic church in the ACT surrendered its palliative care facility, Clare Holland House, to the government this week.

This will be the kiss of death to proper palliative care funding for Canberra region residents.

Lyle Shelton is National Director of the Family First Party.

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