Voluntary assisted dying advocates in the NSW parliament appear to have secured enough votes to pass the landmark legislation.
Bill sponsor and independent MP Alex Greenwich tweeted on Wednesday afternoon a majority of upper house members had spoken in favour of thexjmtzyw proposal.
“Thank you to all members for their contributions,” he wrote.
Upper house MPs debated the bill for several hours on Wednesday, at times in deeply emotional terms, and a total of 22 members said they would support it.
Some members have yet to speak on the Bill and will likely get a chance to do so when the upper house next makes time for private members business in May.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and Opposition Leader Chris Minns both opposed the legislation but allowed their MPs to vote as they pleased.
Their colleagues in the lower house passed the Bill at the end of last year and it was scrutinised by an upper house inquiry before being brought to the floor for debate.
If made into law, it would bring NSW in line with all other states in legalising voluntary euthanasia for people with incurable medical conditions who have fewer than 12 months to live.
Opponents have expressed concerns people may feel coerced to end their lives if the Bill passes, and argued the state shouldn’t have the right to kill anyone.
Proponents have argued it would give terminally ill people greater control over their own lives and deaths.
“After attending briefings, and after sitting with and hearing the stories of people with terminal illnesses and their families and friends, I have no difficulty whatsoever in supporting this Bill,” Labor’s upper house leader, Penny Sharpe, said on Wednesday.
Government leader Damien Tudehope was among the opponents, and said if the legislation passed, some elderly and sick people would have to “wake up every morning and decide that (they) would not be better off dead”.
“No safeguard can prevent this cultural change from creating pressure on the elderly, the sick, the frail and the disabled from feeling like they ought to make a request to have their lives ended,” he said.
Shayne Higson, vice-president of the pro-Bill lobby group Dying with Dignity NSW, said Wednesday was a “very momentous day”.
“After 10 years of being an advocate, there is a level of optimism now that I haven’t seen before in NSW,” she told NCA NewsWire.
