Assisted dying is an "ill-considered and dehumanising" practice reflecting a society in which there is more loneliness, Canberra's Catholic archbishop Christopher Prowse has told an inquiry.
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He spoke at an ACT Legislative Assembly committee's second day of hearings into assisted dying in which doctors rubbished claims that palliative care could always manage end of life pain.
Archbishop Prowse told the committee it was a "lonely policy that only an atomised society would think about", and said people approaching death experienced a "rollercoaster" that saw them take back comments they wanted to die earlier.
He said it would be a "fundamental mistake" to put vulnerable people at "grave risk" by allowing assisted dying.
When asked what was a good death, Archbishop Prowse recounted a time he sat with a woman as she died, and she squeezed his hand.
"I could tell she was on a journey but how grateful she was when she was with us," he said.
"She was ready to go, ready to go and approach death."
He admitted people he had spent time with as they were dying had said they wanted to die right away. However they changed their mind later, he said.
"Then people say, 'I'm feeling a lot better today'."
Doctors for Assisted Dying Choice member David Leaf rejected claims that there were no situations in which palliative care could not manage pain, saying in that case it would be the first medical specialty "where they have the answers to all the complaints all the time."
Dr Leaf said patients often considered assisted dying but were afraid to raise it, and that allowing the practice would give them clear options and freedom to discuss these with doctors.
Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn representative Lara Kirk said it was not known how people grieve when people lose control over their situation because of someone they have a relationship with, rather than natural causes.
Earlier in the day former speaker of the ACT assembly Greg Cornwell told the committee that the ACT should have the right to make decisions on end of life choices, but he also proposed that the legislation be dealt with at a national level for consistency across states and territories.
"If NSW legislates, we are going to be surrounded by NSW [laws]. What are we going to have, people sneaking across the border? It's just absurd."
Mr Cornwell, who was a Liberal MLA between 1995 and 2001, said that he was making his submission to the committee in a personal capacity, and that his position was informed by conversations with his peers over many years, and stories about people who had experienced palliative care and drawn out deaths.
"The hypocrisy of pumping someone full of drugs until they overdose, because they are in pain, I find very difficult to comprehend."
"On this particular issue, to put it bluntly, I don't think the federal politicians have got the guts to do it, even though when you examine the polls, if you like, over 80 per cent of people are sympathetic," he said.
Clarification: A previous version of this story wrongly said that Doctors for Assisted Dying Choice member Dr David Leaf rejected claims that there were no situations in which palliative care could manage pain.
