Aussie report recommends legalization of assisted suicide

The Australian state of Victoria could soon become the first state to legalize voluntary euthanasia for people suffering from serious and incurable conditions.

A committee has recommended the Victorian Government legalize assisted suicide. If the landmark recommendations, handed down by the Parliament's Legal and Social Issues committee, are adopted, Victoria would become the first Australian state to legalize assisted dying.

The report handed down on Thursday, which comes after 10 months of investigation by the committee, made 49 recommendations covering assisted suicide.

Included in the recommendations were changes to the Crime Act designed to protect doctors who act within assisted dying legislation.

"The Government should introduce legislation to allow adults with decision-making capacity, suffering from a serious and incurable condition who are at the end of life to be provided assistance to die in certain circumstances," the report said.

The report specified that a doctor must first prescribe a lethal drug which the patient could take without further assistance unless the patient is physically incapable of doing so.

"It is essential that the patient must be experiencing enduring and unbearable suffering that cannot be relieved in a manner of which they deem tolerable," said the report.

In giving evidence to the committee, cancer patient Sue Jensen, said that she hoped the report would make recommendations to allow her to make her own decisions about the end of her life.

"I just want people who disagree with this to respect it's my health, I'm the one that has to live this," she said.

"I am coming to the end of my time and (want) to just end peacefully and not with further trauma for myself or my family."

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews revealed in June last year that he does not support voluntary euthanasia but conceded momentum to legalize it was building. Endit