{"id":15954,"date":"2025-12-02T23:32:54","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T12:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/?p=15954"},"modified":"2026-02-06T11:14:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T00:14:42","slug":"what-motivated-the-cruel-assisted-dying-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/02\/what-motivated-the-cruel-assisted-dying-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"What motivated the \u2018cruel\u2019 assisted dying bill?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mp_wrapper\">\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-excerpt\">\n    <p>Editor\u2019s note: If you would like to submit a letter for possible publication, please email it to editor@rationalist.com.au. See our Publishing Guideline\n&nbsp;\nDear Editor,\nA varied collection of New South Wales' Legislative Council members wanted to allow religious aged-care providers to force dying residents from their homes if they chose to access voluntary assisted dying (\u2018\u2018Cruel beyond belief\u2019: The legislative push upsetting expert doctor\u2019, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 November 2025).\nWhat was motivating these politicians? Certainly not the wishes of those residents affected. And not the doctors. The eminent NSW Senior of the Year in 2024, Dr John Ward, called the bill \u201ccruel beyond belief\u201d. Also, not the wishes of the NSW electorate, whose representatives voted against this idea when the initial voluntary assisted dying bill was passed into law.\nNSW is supposed to be a secular state. Minority views based on religious dogma should not be countenanced.\nRichard Mills\n&nbsp;\nDawkins on the wrong side of trans argument\nDear Editor,\nRichard Dawkins is a brilliant leading light in many fields. His books, especially, are full of sharp yet sweeping and well-supported insights. This makes it that much more surprising and disappointing that he can get one contentious claim so wrong \u2013 and one advanced also by conservative, religious, and Right-wing proponents, and which is also related to his own specialty of evolutionary biology.\nHe has alleged, without adequate empirical support (and...<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-message\">\n    <hr style=\"width: 100%;max-width: 1000px !important;height: 5px;border-width: 0;color: red;background-color: red\" \/>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\">\n<h3><em>You're part way through this article. Want to keep reading?<\/em><\/h3>\n<h4><em>Only members of the Rationalist Society of Australia can read our Premium articles.\u00a0<\/em><\/h4>\n<h3 style=\"height: 20px\"><span style=\"color: #c83200\"><em><a style=\"color: #c83200\" href=\"https:\/\/rationalist.com.au\/membership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Become a member today.<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<h4><em>Already a member? 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See our<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":444,"featured_media":15955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[656,75,672,324],"coauthors":[114],"class_list":["post-15954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters","tag-prayer-in-government","tag-premium","tag-transgenderism","tag-voluntary-assisted-dying"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/444"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15954"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16130,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15954\/revisions\/16130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15954"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}