By all means Katrina, improve palliative care to the point where nobody wants to go But dont knock the CHOICE of a TERMINALLY ILL person to decide WHEN and HOW THEY (male or female)want to die whether it's to relieve their loved ones of the anguish of waiting and watching or because they are in pain.....
Not every one wants to go out in a drug induced stupor or a morphine overdose mercifully administered by a caring physician.
Think like a person instead of as a feminist.
Maracas

Feminists are people, maracas, and so they think like people. In fact, that is feminism's entire basis; that women are people first and women second (just like men). But, otherwise I agree with you. People will choose suicide, whether we like it or not. Paul Hester is a tragedy, but it is a personal tragedy about depression, not about euthanasia. If I ever face a future of slowly drowning in my own fluids from motor neurone disease, a position a courageous woman I knew found herself in a couple of years ago ( she appeared on 60 minutes arguing her right to die) I will turn to people like Phillip Nitschke not Katrina.
Women may well be more courageous about finding their own solution, rather than accepting the one someone else thinks is okay for them, because they have always taken more responsibility for their own health and well being than men do. We are much more in touch with our bodies, and much more aware of what can happen to them.
Katrina seems to assume it is the people who die in a way of their own choosing who are victims. I imagine many victims are also those kept alive in misery and hopelessness by advances in medical health that can't cure the agony but can, unfortunately, prolong it.

I am a 63 year old man. I wonder how old Katrina is. I don't think anyone should pontificate on euthanasia until they have passed the "It really is going to happen to me" point. For most people that happens some time after the middle fifties. A moment comes, often when friends of similar age die, when for the first time in your life you really believe it might happen to you and quite soon. That's how it happened to me a few years ago. And the difference it made is that I really do worry now that the next visit to the doctor may produce a death sentence. It did to my friend who went in for a persistent cough, came out with kidney cancer and died a year later. Passing the "It really is going to happen" point forces you to think carefully about what you want. And personally, if I find myself in my friend's situation, I do not want to spend my final months in the hands of medics, in pain or drugged out of my mind. Once the final result is beyond doubt, and if that result involves a kind of death I do not wish to have, I want to be allowed to end my life with my family around me, my mind clear and with no fear of legal reprisals. I, along with many older Australians would like to be able to make this decision for myself.

I accept it is vital to ensure the law governing euthanasia is framed carefully to make it impossible for people to be pressured into taking their lives. The results in Oregon and Holland show that can be done. And contrary to what Katrina argues, I agree with Enaj that the reason more women than men have been willing to assert their right to die publicly, hard though it currently is to do so, is not because they are more susceptible than men to pressure from relatives but because they are stronger than us in taking tough decisions of this sort.

A long bow indeed author. You may as well equate seal huntimg with dwarf throwing. This article has nothing to do with females or male, it's about everyone's right to die. It's not about Paul Hester's life or anyone else taking their own life for reasons of their own that we may not be privy to or be so inclined to judge. The parallel this author offers in her article about feminism is just what gives that good word a bad name. Get over linking old age and the right to choose to die properly with the fact that it's a male doc that's had the balls to stand up (consistently) to an issue that is so not related! To sink/link your dumb blonde teeth into this "issue" is puerile and obnoxious.

It may be a generational thing about when George dies, what do I do with the farm? But don't tie any of us in that Dr Death is out stalking us women to be buried alive.

Women live longer than men, Katrina, so more often the good doctor we may need to call. When we need to call him. So what is your point? he's gonna mistake a cough for a coffin?

I am a 39 year old woman and I've supported my mother and grandmother as they died from terminal illnesses - leukemia and Alzheimer's disease respectively. It's said we die as we live, and they did. They faced this inevitable passage with courage and dignity, including the pain and the loss of functionality, without the need to artificially hasten any element. I am so grateful that my foremothers could pass to me the heritage of witnessing such honourable death. They were strong women and many are not, however. In the culture of my partner's family, I observe exactly the elements of which Katrina writes - women who stay in situations of severe domestic violence because they are too afraid to leave and think they 'owe it' to the violent man. Women who if their husbands told them to take a Nietschke death pill, would obliging do so. I think as feminists we have an obligation to protect them and let them know there is a stronger and more honourable way to live, and to die.

If pain reducing drugs are over administrated then it can lead to death from overdose, which would be a form of manslaughter. This then becomes more than an ethical problem for doctors.

But feminists have long suggested that there is less medical research carried out women and women receive less medical treatment than males, but when more intensively studied, these suggestions are nearly always found to be a fallacy.

A search of 3000 medical journals listed in the Index Medicus found that for every article written on male health, there were 23 written on women’s health. In areas such as heart attack treatment it was found that women were generally having heart attack treatment at an older age, which made the treatment less likely to be successful, so heart attack treatment for males and females are not readily comparable.

Recently a group of feminists were found to be reporting false statistics to the UN regards women and men’s health http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2005/0309roberts.html and there have been high profile feminists such as Naomi Wolf and Gloria Steinem who have written in texts that up to 150,000 women die of anorexia each year in the US, but other research found that the number was closer to 50. http://www.fathersforlife.org/health/anorexia8.htm

No matter how pro-female someone is, it now becomes extremely difficult to believe any statistic or doctrine being put forward by feminists. But ultimately males die at a younger age than females, and such things as the gap in retirement ages between males and females do seem to be an important factor. Perhaps males working longer than females is a form of self-sacrifice, but a form of self-sacrifice that is largely expected.

Diamond, Its not about YOU or Your Choice,It was your mother and Grandmothers CHOICE .Don't muddy the waters with asides of a wife beater forcing a pill down the throat of a submissive wife.
Be a Gem and wait your turn......when YOUR time comes take advantage of having a CHOICE.
Besides, Phillip Nietszke,is a proponent of Voluntary Euthanasia. He understands that when people make a decision about suicide, they invariably opt for an overdose of sleeping pills or the exhaust pipe of the car piped into their vehicle.or slash their wrists or a messy shotgun,jump off a cliff or step infront of a train or truck.

I cannot understand the 'logic' of opponents to Dr Nietszke's proposals after counselling to assist in a death which is dignified, peaceful and spares the trauma for the poor devils who have to clean up the mess.

maracas

In response to Diamond.

I respect and admire people like your mother and grandmother who face difficult deaths with courage and serenity. I do not know how I will feel about it until the situation faces me. Perhaps I will feel it is the right thing to do the same as them. If I do, I hope I will have their courage. But I think it is more likely I will continue to feel I'd rather end my life a bit early than go through a lingering, drugged, painful death. And I see no reason why society should limit my choice in an area where if I decide to end my life it harms no other member of society.

But, you say, to allow me that choice might make other people, like your partner's female relations, vulnerable to pressure. It's not a good argument. There are many 'freedoms to choose' allowed by law that have the potential to harm innocent people – the freedom to divorce a partner who still loves and depends on you, the freedom to abort your unborn child, the freedom to access violent pornography easily on the net even though the effect may be deeply harmful especially to the young. These are freedoms society has decided it has no right to deny its members. It has then done what it could to guard against the possible negative effects of allowing those freedoms. I see no good reason why the freedom to choose to end ones life should be treated differently. By all means surround the law with all kinds of safeguards to prevent people being pressured into euthanasia – but don't deny those who really want to end their lives the opportunity to do so.

Diamond, I really appreciate you sharing your experiences of your family, but agree with maraccas. (and suprisingly TImkins). Death kind of takes the gender thingy out of us all. It's all about the right to die. None of us wants to go out unexpectedly if we have the choice (ie: murder, accident, mishap). We all want to die peacefully in our sleep with no discomfort or nightmares. However, faced with the choice (and as we would all just love to have control over our death - as we didn't have over birth or certain life events)in this society, I figure we have the right to choose how/when we die when we are faced with some disease that's going to give us a horrible painful death. And the choice should always be with the person who is facing it without pressure from the "loved ones" that may have a vested interest. Which is why it should be out there rather than unlegislated and behind closed doors.

Now the line

‘social marginalisation, economic disadvantage and oppressive stereotyping that is at the core of so many "free choices".’

Someone has turned their “weasel-word mill” up into high gear and is churning the English Language through it at a non-sustainable rate – so much so she is reduced to recycling bits of Germaine Greer at the end of the article – it reeks of desperation.

It supports a state of being where we are the chattel of the state not allowed to exercise any choice without approval or sanction from the “authorities”.

The bit about cardiac care is interesting – the matter that it has long been held that men are more disposed to cardiac problems or the degree of damage inflicted on the sufferer might be a consideration when doing statistics regarding the comparative levels of care and numbers of treatments across gender. Seems to me the number of treatments for breast cancer are seriously skewed toward ladies – and not toward men – yet men too can suffer breast cancer (just not as commonly as women).

Like most of what is written in the name of feminism (or maleism for that matter) – as this article seems to be, the sooner people respect others as individuals and stop taking a stance based on gender, the sooner we will all move forward. Unless I am to be cynical and assume that “feminism” is a substitute for the socially less palatable “racism” in those who seem to be unable to function unless they someone else to put down.

Now back to the article – euthanasia is not about gender – it is about individuals. Trying to beef something into what it is not is simply an attempt at politicism and sensationalism (more "isms") of what should be a personal choice – regardless of how cynical the author views the merit of “individuals” having a “choice”.

Although Tchamala point of “pressure from relatives” does need to be recognised and protected against..

Proposing improved palliative care has a civilised ring about it.

And it is not new.

Senator Brian Harradine put it forward during Commonwealh Parliamentary debate - which he helped direct towards the dismantling of voluntary euthanasia rights legislation in force at the time in Australia's Northern Territory.

What a load of nonsense such empty proposals are in actuality.

Ask any concentious Palliative Care nurse who has worked across the time boundary of the legislative change: The caring atmosphere pertaining prior to it has deteriorated since. Under the pressure of "rational economics" fostered since, the spirit behind it is now subordinate. Bureaucratic imperative, as defined by competition policy architects, takes precedence over the needs of the individual patient. Consequently, "Encouragement" to linger in extreme discomfort has been minimised, and continues to deteriorate as the years go by.

To be blunt, the proposal for "improved palliative care" is straight-out dishonest.

Forced prolongation by modern medicine or otherwise of terminal suffering, mental and physical, against the will of the person suffering is hardly democratic. And it is barbaric. It belongs to the age it sprang from two millennia past (if it ever truly belonged then). It is no improvement morally on the old practices of leaving the ailing grandmother out on the ice to await the polar bear; or putting out in the snow the male baby incapable of suspending itself from his father's finger.

Thank goodness we're agreeing on something again Col. Good stance, euthanasia has nothing to do with gender - who dies more than others from a certain illness. It's not about women being oppressed and more inclined to have the pillow over the face. It is an individual's right to choose the right to die when they are nearer that choice and much more the principle of their own life. After all, if I'm past 40 (which I am) and have the choice over a long lingering death of which i'm miserable, in pain and discomfort and the chance of escaping the pain and still be compus mentos (apologise again for my Latent Latin Col), I know i'd rather have the choice. It's a luxury a lot of humans don't get to choose. Who would say it's right to make someone suffer because society hasn't gone there yet? We need to talk more to the witnesses (ie family, friends) to get a more balanced view about the issue. Cannot buy into the euthanasia and women thing Katrina, no matter how much I tilt the frame.

OK. Two stories from my family.

My 97 Y.O. grandmother developed pneumonia and was hospitalised, she insisted that the life support system be removed, said good bye to my mother, aunt and uncle and went peacefully on her terms. Not because she was a woman but because she was a vital independant human being.

2nd story, my father (an alcoholic, age 53), collapsed at the dinner table after his evening meal. The locum declared that dad had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage - he delayed the calling of an ambulance, after about 15 minutes the doctor called an ambulance and when it arrived confered for some time with the officer. He then checked my father again and informed my mother that he was dead. Autopsy confirmed the massive blood clot that destroyed what was left of my father's mind. These were decisions by men. And a very good decision for my family, we were able to grieve and move on with our lives.

The point I am making is Katrina doesn't have a clue what she is talking about. (Running out of time for anything more eloquent).

I think there are two separate issues going on here. One is that ANY issue, history, artefact or utterance can be subjected to feminist analysis, which if well done will show up what gender issues, if any, are at work there. I thought the stuff in Katrina's piece about women not wanting to be burdens was absolutely bang-on. The point I would want to make is that that is their choice. What does she want to do - take that choice away from them in order to empower them as women? Would she offer the same argument about abortion, another emotive topic revolving round the control over one's own body? I doubt it very much, and she would be right not to do so.

Having said that, the second issue is Philip Nitschke and voluntary euthanasia. Please note the word voluntary, which most of Nitschke's opponents either ignore or apparently don't understand. Nitschke himself has a long history as an advocate and activist in good humane/humanist causes -- spent several years working for the Gurindji at Wave Hill in the 70s, spent more years driving round Darwin providing a mobile medical service for drug addicts and sex workers, stood as a Greens candidate in the NT. His advocacy of euthanasia is to do with increasing individual human freedom and decreasing human suffering, and is also to do with his resistance to the management of death in our society by the legal and medical professions and the church - particularly the Christian romanticisation of sufffering, which, as he demonstrates, permeates the culture of palliative care. Every argument put up by Katrina apart from the feminist angle is engaged with, discussed and refuted in his book Killing Me Softly, which I strongly recommend she reads.

Great posts Lucy and Ringtail. Katrina, get off your high mare re it's a gender thing. It may be that pre women's lib little old ladies feel that to live longer than George, they are a burden on society. As they must have felt once upon a time if they got pregnant outside marriage. But it's not a conspiracy against little old ladies. I am a great admirer of Doctor Phillip Nietchske (sorry if i've mispelt). He is taking this society outside of the little pine box we live and die in. He's hardly a Pied Piper or a Jim Jones re suicide, he's just giving us alternatives that are medically (and should be morally) available. What are we worried about, Soylent Green?

Thanks Goodness there is someone out there like Katrina. Those who want to end their lives and avoid suffering can do so by suicide. Do not force on to the rest of society euthanasia laws which will inevitably be taken advantage of by people to dispose of others where it is expedient to them either because of reasons of inheritance (as has been documented elsewhere) or convenience ( no time to look after the ill).

Sophia, suicide is against the law. Voluntary Euthanasia shouldn't be. Society in western world now enjoys greater quality of life with medical advances that offer us better longevity that we all can take advantage of.

However, there is no cure for certain illnesses which can only offer a painful, undignified death after much suffering, until such a time that medical advances or breakthoughs change this. This is about an individual choosing the right time to die. If one is in that predicament, one would be a stupid idiot to be influenced by one's family, who, in your paranoid view, would be hovering around the bed and waving the last will and testament. Sure it is an issue which needs to be addressed and debated in a forum, but not shoved under the bed because we don't want to go there, until it's you or me?

Actually, Di, according to Philip Nitschke, suicide is not illegal in Australia. What IS illegal is aiding suicide, hence the attempted legal action against the 20-odd people who sat with Nancy Crick as she died. The federal government is currently acting to tighten this law and remove grey areas including advice given online.

The whole point of Nitschke's book is not that he wants suicide legalised (because it is already legal), or even, these days, that he wants voluntary euthanasia legalised, because he is now convinced that it would be under even tighter control from the legal and medical professions, with plenty of input from the church, than it is already. His aim now is to give people freedom of choice through developing a safe, non-messy, non-undignified, non-agonising, instantly lethal compound of common household ingredients that no government will ever be able to outlaw.

And one of his arguments is that when people know this is possible, they are that much more likely to choose to live, knowing they have the option if they decide to take it. Knowledge is power, and that is what Nitschke wants people to have.

I cannot recommend too strongly that people read all of his book, learn the facts, and understand properly what it is that he is actually arguing. It's very clear to me from her article that either Katrina George had either not understood the book, or had simply not read it.

Thanks for enlightening me Lucy, I always thought suicide WAS against the law (but they could only charge you for attempted if you didn't commit it, hey). I haven't read his book, but your synopsis makes sense and yes, I agree, knowledge is power. We can all kill ourselves if we have the motive and it doesn't take much knowledge to figure out how to do it.

I really do think it is a human experience that should be explored and debated as it is such an individual thing. Just ask anyone in your workplace about their preferred way of exit and you won't find anyone saying "Gee I'd really like to spend my last days/weeks in agony wishing someone would pull the plug but I'm too far gone to ask".

Thanks for the post

This is an excellent article. George should be congratulated rather than subjected to irrational abuse.

George correctly points out that euthanasia decisions are based on more than a mere calculation of pain and that other considerations come into play. That is, considerations not always in the patient's best interests. Some of these are overt. Others, including the feminine ethic of self-sacrifice, are more subtle.

There is academic research to back up George's argument. Her points should be of grave concern. They are good reason for not legalising euthanasia - especially when pallative care standards are good.