The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has called for the removal of a billboard promoting euthanasia from near the main entrance of the Caboolture (Metro North Health) Public Hospital north of Brisbane.
ACL National Director of Politics Wendy Francis said the 4×2 metre advertisement is prominently positioned at the front of the hospital where staff, patients and the general public walk past many times a day. She labelled it a “a heartless and brazen attempt to promote assisted suicide to people who are at their lowest ebb in life.”
Ms. Francis noted: “In Queensland it is an offence, under section 311 of the Criminal Code, to counsel another person to kill themselves, or to induce them to do so. In November last year, Federal Court Judge, Wendy Abraham KC, ruled that voluntary assisted dying (VAD) is a form of suicide. Have laws been broken here?”
“That question must be answered, but regardless, the doctors lending their voices to this advertisement should be ashamed of themselves for participating in what appears to be callous opportunism. Queensland Health’s own documents indicate that risk factors for suicide include pain, illness, and lack of control over life circumstances.”
The ACL called on “Queensland’s Health Minister Shannon Fentiman to intervene and demand that the hospital cease from advertising an easy death to people who come to find help to live.”
