Nitschke is a medical doctor, so perhaps he would explain what a "carcenoid syndrome" is - I've Googled it, checked dictionaries, used spell-checkers, but no-where have I found the term.

While he's at that, perhaps he would give us the other "main reasons (he) became involved in the voluntary euthanasia (VE) debate", particularly whether the Medicare rebates he receives in consequence of his enhanced public profile is one of those reasons.

Well you couldn't have been paying much attention to your Google search LB as it prompts you for the correct spelling "carcinoid" and provides you 179,00 results.

And I suspect that Philip's income has been limited by his stance on euthanasia rather than increased.

Flaming an author, or anyone else, is not on, and you are pretty close to the edge. Either address the article or find one you can address.

Philip – you claim that this Bill is about “a strictly guarded qualification process where terminally ill patients can request assistance to die”.

The reality is that this Bill allows a doctor to provide a lethal dose to a person aged 18 years or more where the person claims to have a medical condition that makes life “intolerable”.

According to South Australian doctor, Robert Pollnitz, “ The Bill places total faith in that one doctor – there is no consent form, no family involvement, no second opinion, no board of oversight, so mental health specialist, no cooling off period, no residency requirement. After the event the only witness other than the doctor is dead. The Bill grants the doctor immunity from prosecution by the simple assertion that he or she thought the lethal dose “reasonable” and the Bill actually directs the court to see it that way. The defence need only be proven on “the balance of probabilities” to succeed. This is a protect-the-doctor Bill that provides absolutely no protection at all for the patient. And the doctor has only to believe the patient is 18, not to sight any proof.”

That is “strictly guarded?

Many of us who can remember the Four Corners Program some years ago with a happy group of older people interested in choosing their own time to die. They were in the country, by necessity the location was not identified, barbecuing, enjoying each other’s company while at the same time engaged in the manufacture of a small quantity of Nembutal, a pentobarbital, the first choice of those who choose to end their lives.
Such viewers will also remember the comment by the feckless President of the AMA at that time, Rosanna Capalingua, who after having seen the contented environment described above, the happy nature of all in attendance stated as follows, (transcript)...
JANINE COHEN: ( ABC presenter)As an act of civil disobedience, 20 elderly people have been making Nembutal in a backyard laboratory. They put $2000 each into the project and all want just one single dose of the drug. The manufacturing of an illicit drug carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
DR ROSANNA CAPOLINGUA, AUSTRALIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION: This shows to me the desperation that we've created in individuals where they believe they need to break the law to have...a way of protest to choose end of life. We have to solve what the desperation is about. We have to relieve them of the need and belief that they should have and need to have the right to choose death over continuing to live.

“What the desperation is all about” ......and this from a medical person. Sad, isn’t it?

That finished it for me with the AMA, a most arrogant, demanding, privileged and self-serving Union from the medical industry (once a profession). If that was the best comment one could expect from such a body, why would you even take their opinions into consideration, ever, on euthanasia or any other subject. If anything, they should be supporting such a decision from rational (not depressed) people. The best incentive for this group of mercenary medicos would be to charge a big fee for a Nembutal injection.

That would most certainly get their support.

A final word from Ms Capolingua, now a GP in Perth..........
“They (I assume she means the happy old people making Nembutal) don't want to be putting other people under pressure, needing to care for them. They don't like their options for continuing life, and so they suicide. I think the suicide then is not the answer. We need to find answers about how to make them feel differently about themselves and feel valuable so they don't want to choose death.”

For her information, mostly they feel good about themselves. Probably raised a family, were loved and honoured, struggled at times to pay the bills, educated their children and perhaps sacrificed because of this, but all because they chose to do so. It wasn’t forced on them.

They have made their contribution to this country and to their families, willingly and happily. Perhaps not too well now, tired of the everyday grind and in so many cases, have discussed it with their families who would support those wishes. And these honourable people have to wait on enlightened politicians to procrastinate for decades because they would not Have the courage to upset the religious voters in their electorates or consider any legislation that may be contentious?

Just look at them in Canberra. There wouldn’t be one who would consider it for one minute. The options then?

The people in that professional TV program in May, 2007 would on any day make anyone view them as rational, generally well educated, absolutely in complete control of their actions and certainly not deserving of the patronising attitude of the likes of the Capolinguas of this world who because of her so-called exalted position in the AMA, was able to get away with giving the impression that such people are depressed. Subject closed.

Hence their interest in euthanasia, assisted death, which she prefers to call ‘suicide’

She and people like her, have a lot to learn.

Seems as though nothing has improved since that date in 2007. In fact, we are no more enlightened as a race now, than we were in the dark ages.

It is quite astonishing how all the powers that be are so frightened of V.E. All that is demanded is the right to make your own personal and individual decisions on your own personal and individual way of departure from this world. It should be no one else’s decision but exclusively your own and it should be no business of the AMA and the Govt should produce some sensible legislation. They should obey the 80% of the population that votes again and again for some form of VE
I have no idea whether this South Australian bill provides the whole answer but at least it appears to get every doctor out of the intolerable current legal situation if they follow their Hippocratic oath and genuinely try to do their best for the patients that request V.E. The current situation is most unfair to doctors
This Act may be the best our current parliamentarians can do but it is certainly better than nothing and should be supported. There are however numerous countries round the world that have passed what appear to be very satisfactory laws that work very well – the Netherlands, Switzerland and Oregon to name a few. Australia could copy any one of these with only minor modifications far more profitably than wasting time and energy on Carbon and Resource taxes that have the principle effect of reducing the number of jobs available. I would suspect all these countries have satisfactorily dealt with JP’s complaint that “there is no consent form, no family involvement, no second opinion, no board of oversight, so mental health specialist, no cooling off period, no residency requirement.” This may not be the perfect bill but at least it is a start. There is so much more to be done