The Forum > Article Comments > Bandt's rant > Comments
Bandt's rant : Comments
By Paul Russell, published 14/3/2012'End of life' decision making is not an appropriate euphemism for euthanasia.
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1. Suffering people make decisions about other things as well as whether or not they want to die.
Granted. So what? Why draw an arbitrary line between, say, deciding to take enough morphine to numb the pain for a day, or taking enough to numb it forever? If someone is competent to do the first they are presumably competent enough to do the second.
2. Most Australians don't have an opinion on assisted dying.
Maybe so, but again, so what? Most Australians don't have an opinion on leukaemia sufferers, road victims or identity theft, either, until it happens to them or someone they know. But to people who are in, or know people in, these unfortunate situations, these issues suddenly become very important indeed, and they have a right to pressure the government into making rational and human laws relating to them.
As for your Catholicism, it merely helps to explain why you, and those like you, appear to have such trouble grasping that the right to die on request is a simple and obvious candidate for a basic human right to be guaranteed in legislation. "How could anyone be so silly?" we ask. "S/he's a theist," comes the explanation. "Ah, I see..."
If you really think banning assisted dying can be defended in secular terms, without reference to the alleged pronouncements of a jealous and selfish God, then go ahead. Explain, in terms that an atheist can understand, why someone who is entitled to medical help to keep a painful and distressing life going should be deprived of that help if they choose to end it.