Slippery slopes down under: the progressive loosening of requirements for voluntary assisted dying in Australia and New Zealand

Between November 2017 and June 2024 eight jurisdictions in Australia and New Zealand passed laws to legalise some form of euthanasia and/or assisted suicide. Like the United States, Australia has a federal constitution and 'voluntary assisted dying' (VAD) in Australia has been legalised at the state level. However, unlike the United States, Australia and New Zealand both permit practitioner administration of the lethal drug (euthanasia) as well as self-administration (assisted suicide). Another difference is that physician-assisted suicide, at first, spread very slowly in the United States, and new laws were based closely on the requirements of the original legislation in Oregon. In contrast, in Australia and New Zealand, the spread of VAD has been rapid from the outset, and there is a discernible pattern of successive weakening of safeguards in more recent legislation. The Australian model has increasingly come to resemble that of Canada.