The NSW Upper House has debated a controversial voluntary assisted-dying bill which if passed would make the state the last in Australia to have euthanasia legalised.
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The bill would give those with a terminal illness and expected to live for less than 12 months the right to expedite their death.
The legislation passed in the lower house last year with a margin of 20 votes and was debated in the upper house on Wednesday in its second reading.
Some 13 speeches were given regarding the bill on Wednesday, with nine in favour and four against.
Independent Sydney MP Alex Greenwich, who introduced the bill in 2021 to the lower house, said on social media on Wednesday he hoped the debate would continue in parliament next week.
"If we don't act, if we don't vote, what we will see happen is ... people dying horrific deaths, people with an advanced terminal illness taking their own life to prevent further suffering," he said.
Greens MP Cate Faehrmann supported the passage of the bill citing the anguishing testimonies of patients with terminal illnesses.
"When someone with a terminal illness is screaming in pain at the end of their lives...begging their loved ones and the healthcare workers around them to show some compassion and end their lives, why can't they have the choice of the benefit of an early death?," she said.
NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell also supports the legislation, while saying she had struggled with the issue.
"The key word is that it's voluntary...What it will mean, it will be an available choice for people who want to have control at the end of their life".
However, One Nation MP Mark Latham opposed the bill saying it was "an incomprehensible guide to legalised suicide".
He was joined by Reverend Fred Nile in strongly opposing the legislation noting "the vast majority of Christians do not support euthanasia".
Gavin Pattullo, an anaesthetist and pain management specialist whose wife Vanessa took her own life in 2018 after a 14-year battle with leukaemia, was among those at a rally at parliament pushing for the bill to be passed swiftly.
"Because of a lack of a VAD bill she had to do that by herself without saying a proper goodbye to loved ones," he told AAP.
He pointed to Victoria's laws as a model to follow where there is an extensive process patients must go through in order to qualify for assisted dying.
Labor MP Alex Searle, one of the bill's 28 co-sponsors, is pushing for the debate to be extended to Fridays in addition to the established parliamentary sitting days.
Dying With Dignity NSW and Go Gentle Australia placed full page ads in newspapers on Wednesday urging the upper house MLCs to not drag their feet on the bill.
"This bill hands the choice of whether you suffer or not at the end of life back to the people who are terminally ill. It doesn't put it in the hands of the doctor, it puts it in the hands of the people," Go Gentle Australia CEO Kiki Paul told AAP.
Euthanasia advocate and prominent media personality Andrew Denton, who watched his father struggle with a terminal illness, said "it's inconceivable that NSW will remain the only state in Australia without these protections".
"People in NSW don't die any differently to people in every other state," he told AAP.
"The tragedy will be if this parliament doesn't act, the suicides ... and the terrible deaths will continue."
Australian Associated Press
