Ms Margaret Brown2
1Universtiy of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, 2Universtiy of Adelaide , Adelaide, Australia
Biography:
Margaret Brown is a social scientist and consultant researcher in advance care directives, supported decision-making, ethical issues at the end of life, including resuscitation decisions. She is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of South Australia.
She has been an adviser to SA of Health over many years including Deputy Chair of the SA Advance Directive Review Committee (2007-8), the recommendations of this Committee formed the basis of the Advance Care Directives Act 2013 (SA); Deputy Chair of the End-of-Life Working Group which developed the Resuscitation Plan 7 Step Pathway. In 2013 she was appointed to the End-of-life Ministerial Advisory Committee, the End-of-Life Care Strategy Program Board in 2017 and the Advance Care Planning Oversight Group in 2020
Margaret served on the Guardianship Board and is a research consultant with the Public Advocate (OPA) on Supported Decision-Making Projects since 2012, including 2 Law Foundation grants examining the practice of supported decision-making as well as the Life Time Support project. Currently she is the research consultant with the NDIA project Living my life: capacity building project with SAHMRI and OPA, which has recently had its funding extended from the Commonwealth.
As a result of her research on supported decision making, Margaret developed an advance care plan, similar to the legal advance care directive document under the South Australian Act for people who wish to express their goals and wishes in advance but are not able to complete the legal ACD form. This document has been used widely in aged care facilities and has formed the basis of other documents for people with an intellectual disability.
For many years she has run workshops on advance care directives (ACDs) for health professionals and community groups and gives public lectures for MPs constituents on understanding people’s rights to protect their autonomy in advance.
Abstract:
Suicide will always be present in our society, both in tragic circumstances and in circumstances that reflect autonomy and dignity in the face of suffering, such as voluntary assisted dying. Our law making must reflect the complex nature of suicide and recognise the competing ethical principles, so parliamentarians can engage in well-informed debate about the complex issues. There is a need to balance individual autonomy with protecting vulnerable members of society, including deciding who needs to be protected, and how much.
As our society, our medical system, and therefore our laws, gradually shift from a paternalistic focus on ‘best interests’ to rights-based approaches (whether in the context of suicide prevention, voluntary assisted dying or advance care directives), there are differences of opinion on how far we should follow this shift in the context of suicide.
In recent years the South Australian Parliament debated Bills related to suicide in three different contexts. A review of these debates demonstrates that not all Members of Parliament fully appreciated the complexity of the issues raised nor the competing ethical principles involved.
Presentation slides PDF – Click here