ACT Right to Life Association MEDIA RELEASE

Conscience vote welcomed, but euthanasia not an electoral vote winner

President of the ACT Right to Life Association, Jeremy Stuparich, today welcomed the news that the ACT Labor Party had decided to allow a conscience vote on voluntary euthanasia. Mr Stuparich also encouraged the ALP to drop euthanasia from its agenda when it conducts the foreshadowed review of policies for the next election.

"The Labor Party should be congratulated for allowing its parliamentary members a conscience vote on this issue, but it also should recognise that ALP support for radical social policies such as euthanasia was one of the factors which led to its defeat in 1995", said Mr Stuparich.

"I am concerned however", Mr Stuparich said, "over whether a real conscience vote is possible in a party where the two Labor MLA’s who opposed euthanasia in the Legislative Assembly last year were called ‘rats and scabs’ (Canberra Times, 23 June 1996), despite the fact that those two MLAs had been given a de-facto conscience vote by the ALP.

"In order for the conscience vote to have any real meaning, the ALP should foster a full and open debate on the issue within the Party. The decision to adopt voluntary euthanasia as a party policy was made in 1991, without general party debate, after it had been looked at by the ALP’s Legal and Administrative Reform Policy Committee."

Issued: 23 June 1996

Contact: Jeremy Stuparich, president of the ACT Right to Life Association.

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