We have just hit the 20,000 signature mark! A huge thank you to everyone that has signed and shared already, it is a significant milestone to reach.
I know there are still many who may have hesitated to sign because they are concerned Hem's Law is just Voluntary Assisted Dying, and they aren't sure if they want to allow someone to end the life of a person with dementia. If you have shared this petition already and come up against the same objection, this update will help you address this objection also.
The fundamental distinction between Voluntary Assisted Dying and Hem's Law is one decision is based on a quality of life, the other is about quality of a death.
VAD is already legal in most states and territories in Australia, but dementia sufferers are excluded from eligibility because by the time they are within the window to ask (less than 12 months to live) they have lost the capacity to do so. This is because VAD legislation sits in a framework of "assisted dying" that has required an exception be made to Australia's criminal code which prohibits suicide and therefore criminalises assisted suicide.
What Hem's Law is asking for cannot be considered suicide or assisted dying - the person is already dying.
Hem's Law does not sit with VAD legislation. It sits with Guardianship legislation.
Here's the legal reality in Australia today.
Every Australian state and territory has guardianship legislation that already gives a legal guardian or power of attorney the right to authorise the withdrawal or withholding of life-sustaining treatment on behalf of a person who has lost the capacity to decide for themselves, such as the right to withdraw a ventilator from someone who cannot breathe without assistance. It also includes the decision to withhold or withdraw food and water from a person with advanced dementia who can no longer swallow. That person then dies by starvation and dehydration, a process that can take up to 3 weeks.
That decision is lawful, in every Australian state and territory, right now.
What you cannot do - what no guardianship law currently allows - is choose to end the dying process swiftly rather than wait for starvation to conclude it.
Not manage it better. End it.
Hem's Law closes that specific gap. It asks for a dedicated provision within existing guardianship legislation that permits a substitute decision-maker to end the dying process - mercifully and swiftly through the administration of medication - at the moment the law already acknowledges the death has begun.
The same guardian. The same clinical threshold. The same substitute decision-making framework that Australian guardianship law has operated on for decades.
This is not a new legal principle. It is the completion of one.
The legal barrier is not the death itself - that is already permitted. The barrier is to ending the dying swiftly and mercifully, rather than waiting for starvation to end it.
If you haven't already, please share this petition with one person today. They may not yet understand that the legal exists to authorise this death, but that a humane and merciful conclusion to that dying is not an option. That is what we are fighting for.
I have also covered this is a Facebook post if you would like to share the message from there: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16YkhvHFLc/
Thank you for being here.
Angie
(Founder, Hem's Law)