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Sydney
New South Wales has voted to legalize voluntary assisted dying, becoming the sixth jurisdiction in Australia to do so.
The bill, which will allow eligible people to access voluntary assisted dying as an additional end-of-life option, on Thursday passed the upper house with amendments with 23 votes in favour and 15 against it following hours a 12-hour debate. It was then ratified by the lower house.
“Today, NSW passes a threshold of honesty and compassion,” state parliament member Alex Greenwich, who introduced the bill last year, told the lower house according to newswire AAP.
“Honesty that not all people die well, and compassion that people in NSW with an advanced terminal illness can have the same end of life choices as people in every other state.”
The law is set to come into place within 18 months.
The bill allows Australian citizens or residents aged 18 or over who have the mental capacity to make the decision to end their own life if they have an illness which will cause death - within 12 months for a neurodegenerative disease or otherwise 6 months - and is causing suffering.
New South Wales has become the last of Australia’s six states to allow voluntary assisted dying. It is still not legal in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), home to the capital Canberra, or the Northern Territory.
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20/05/2022
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