Dad4Kids has a totally positive focus to encourage, resource and inspire dads to be great dads.

Fatherlessness is the single biggest curse of western civilisation. Dads4Kids strategy to reverse that curse is to promote excellence in fathering as the benchmark, or agreed norm, in our otherwise dysfunctional society.

Fathers aspiring to excellence treat their children well.

Fathers aspiring to excellence treat their wives well because they know that the greatest thing a father can do for his children is to love his children’s mother.

Fathers aspiring to excellence treat other people well because they know that their children will copy them; not only their words but their actions and deeds.

Fathers aspiring to excellence always protect the vulnerable, helping the helpless and saving the innocent, because they know that little eyes are watching. Actions always speak louder than words.

Why am I saying all this?

On Friday 20 October 2017, the Lower House of the Victorian Parliament passed the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill, 47:37 votes, after a so-called ‘conscience vote’ and a debate that ran for three days and all night on the final night. If this bill gets through the Victorian Upper House on 31 October, to quote an ABC story, “terminally ill people over the age of 18, in severe pain and with only a year to live, will be able to access lethal drugs”.

What the ABC doesn’t tell you is that these same lethal drugs will be able to be accessed by family members to give to ‘said patient’ on their request. What if ‘said patient’ changes his mind because he doesn’t really want to die, but is given the lethal drugs by family members against his will? What if the lethal dose is given to a terminally ill father but there are a few ‘pills left over’ after he dies. The family members slip a few pills into their mother’s coffee so they can get the family inheritance. It wouldn’t take much to fake the suicide of an upset widow. Who would ever know?

Once the government legalises killing people, it will not stop. Nazi Germany’s experience in the 1930s and 40s shows the nightmare that can ensue.

Three former Victorian branch Presidents of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) have spoken out against legalising Voluntary Euthanasia, warning that the proposed safeguards are so weak ‘you could drive a truck through them’.

One of my friends whom I work closely with in the Canberra Declaration, David Rowsome, said it well in a submission to Government.

While Australians are a compassionate people, our compassion should never drive us to support killing an individual through euthanasia or to help someone with their suicide.  Collectively as Australians we have a duty of care for the vulnerable members of our society.  Sadly, the euphemistic descriptions of euthanasia and assisted suicide such as ‘assisted dying’ or ‘death with dignity’ are very misleading.  While the deaths of vulnerable citizens are the result, these practices are in the final analysis not about dying but about killing.  In a similar vein the legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide does not give individuals the ‘right to die’ but the ‘right to be killed’ by a physician or by their own hand.

. . . Australian Medical Association president Dr Michael Gannon has publicly stated that “doctors should have no role in intentionally ending a patient’s life.”  As a medical professional he is not alone in saying this. Dr Gannon points out that of the 109 medical associations representing different countries, 107 oppose euthanasia.

Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide completely overturn present longstanding medical ethics.  This drastically changes the relationship between doctors and their patients.  Every doctor potentially becomes an agent of state-sanctioned killing.  This duty to kill goes against the Hippocratic Oath which states “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect.”  In forswearing the giving of poison when asked for it, the physician rejects the view that the patient’s choice to be killed can make killing him or her right.

In considering end of life choices Australia has the advantage of observing what has happened in countries where euthanasia and assisted suicide have been legalised.  One very sobering observation is that wherever these practices have been legalised they have expanded to include more groups of vulnerable people.  This unintended and apparently unavoidable outcome is now described as “scope creep”.  This is where the criteria for state-sanctioned killing grows to include non-terminal illnesses, psychological disorders, especially depression, and even the euthanasia of children. . .

Euthanasia and assisted suicide are huge social changes which are fraught with dangers than can lead to horrific abuses.  We urge Western Australia to heed the wise counsel of Australian, international and historic experts in medical ethics.  Australian society needs policies that encourage caring for and saving lives not killing.

As the Canberra Declaration states “the very heart of a humane and civilised society is based on the way it treats its most vulnerable and innocent members …“

Lovework

You guessed it. There is some work to be done. As fathers, we need to make a stand to protect the vulnerable, help the helpless and save the innocent. When our children see us doing this it will confirm their suspicion that we are indeed the ‘best dad in the world’.

Yours for protecting the vulnerable

Warwick Marsh

PS: If you would like to help in the battle for life in Victoria, do these three things

1. Write a letter/s to all 40 Members of the Legislative Council. Names and addresses here.
2. Ring one, or all, of the 40 Legislative Council Members over the next 7 days before Vic Parliament resumes on 31 October. Names and phone numbers here.
3. Tell your friends to do the same. Together we can make a difference!

PS2: If you would like to do more, sign the Canberra Declaration: to protect life, marriage, family and freedom. Read the Canberra Declaration here. Sign it here.