#7 The ‘C’ Word

There are many firsts in Betty King’s life. First female prosecutor for the state of Victoria. First female prosecutor for the Commonwealth of Australia. First female silk in Victoria. Now another – first Chair of Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board.

Reporting to parliament, the Board oversees the processes of the law with its 68 safeguards, ensuring that doctors adhere to the rules, and that the people seeking assistance to die are competent and not being coerced.

Of all the doubts raised by MPs in the parliamentary debate about assisted dying, none was more frequent than the fear that a vulnerable person may be coerced to their death by heartless relatives through the VAD law. 

In this episode, we meet Betty – the “Guardian of the Safeguards’ – as well as doctors, palliative care physicians, pharmacists, VAD Care Navigators, and families of those who have been through the process to find out whether any of those fears have turned out to be true.

And we discover there is another, unwritten safeguard: To take this path, you have to have enormous courage.

The Hon. Betty King QC, Chair of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board speaking on the panel at the Wheeler Centre's Last Words: Voluntary Assisted Dying event - Photo: Tiffany Garvie

 

“It's not an easy process. But neither it should be. This is the ending of a life. And it ought to be treated in a serious manner. Because it's a serious thing to do.”

Betty King

Know More

• Visit Go Gentle Australia gogentleaustralia.org.au
• Article: ‘Interview with Justice Betty King’ Young Lawyers Journal, Law Institute of Victoria, 2010
• Article: ‘King’s court: A one-off judge call