"It seems that we really have a culture of death here in Australia".

Nah, not a culture of death, but we can hope for a culture of choice it's not here yet. I have family history of motor neurone disease. It's genetic though there a very high chance, I'll avoid the bullet. The problem with MN is that you become totally incapacitated. Trapped in your own body. So if you don't want to hang in for the bitter end (and others are braver and more accepting than me) you have to take the popping yourself early option, so you don't leave it to late.

I would be hoping to stay with my family for as long as possible, and if I develop this disease, then maybe I would never request euthanasia if I was comfortable with situation. But as it stands, I would have to make a decision early to avoid not being in a position where I didn't have a choice. Be nice if I develop the disease that I could indicate when I was ready to hop off the planet.

I strongly support other people's right not to be involved in euthanasia or abortion and think that legislation trying to coerce people into these things is disgusting, but I want people who want such things to have access to them, with full government support and services from willing people of a similar mindset.

The real problem is Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia.

I have seen one person die of cancer and another of Alzheimer's. Neither is a pleasant death but I'd take the cancer any day.

I have decided that at the first sign of dementia I shall kill myself while I am still able to form the necessary intention. I have selected a method and procured the necessary equipment.

Now I would far rather be able to leave instructions that I am to be painlessly killed when I reach an advanced stage of the disease. paradoxically the ABSENCE of a euthanasia law could end up robbing me of years of life. However, rather that than end up warehoused in an aged "care" facility. Rather an early death than let my children see me as a drooling shell.

The truth is that to all intents and purposes Alzheimer's victims are brain dead years before their hearts stop beating. Keeping their hearts beating - one can scarcely call it keeping them alive - is cruel to their loved ones. I shall not inflict that on those who love me.

A question for Rhys Jones

What does it mean to be a "live human"?

Is someone in an advanced state of dementia a "live human"?

Personally I don't think so. I do not think you are killing a person when you terminate the life of someone in the final stages of Alzheimer's because everything that made that person human is already gone.

Similarly I would ask at what stage in fetal development are we dealing with a live human?

Is a fertilised egg that has not yet started to divide really a human being?

What about when we have 2, 4, 8, 16 etc cells.

When has there been sufficient development for us to be able to say the fetus is now a live human?

My own feeling, based on the development of the brain and nervous system, is that in the first trimester the fetus is in a pre-human stage. I would only permit abortions AFTER the first trimester under exceptional circumstances.

That's right Steven, taking YOUR life should be entirely YOUR choice. No-one else's.

Joe

Face it guys, your arguments are perfectly logical for a normal person, but you don't realize is that the kind of people that oppose:

-Euthanasia don't understand the notion of "Free Will" at all- it's a tricky word used by merchants to open up the coercion to die in their eyes. The deal is, these are people who can only be TOLD what to do and how to think by somebody else- and they're so dumb that they feel if allowed they probably could be talked into offing themselves.

-Abortion is trickier, as it banks on their definition of life- but always ignore the social consequences of banning abortion- that is a person who WOULD kill the child if allowed, being responsible for its upbringing (most anti-abortionists parrot some line "most who consider it decide to keep it" without telling us what happens after that).

In short, people who hold the stance on BOTH tend to have some unhealthy mindset that "Life" (defined in the crudest term that you are simply not physically dead- eg still have a heartbeat- even if artificially induced) is more important than anything else- due to some crazy indoctrinated fear of DEATH, kind of like what a kid would have.
It seems the rest of us with more functional brains can actually weigh up just HOW sanctified life is.

What a load of rubbish!
Where is the author's evidence that we're "fixated on legalising killing of the elderly..."? as though we're all moral neuters actuated by nothing but expedience. Surely everybody recognises the tortuous dilemmas surrounding issues like euthanasia and abortion. But the author only agonises over the issues in a one-sided fashion. Much as I deplore reducing matters to economics (though that's what our lives amount to in the system we're obliged to embrace), why doesn't the author consider the sustainability issue of keeping mankind's broken-down wreckage (or unwanted babies) alive at any cost, beyond any usefulness they are to themselves or semblance of quality of life left to them. It's not only economically unsustainable, it's ethically unconscionable to go on treating humans as though they're entitled to a special dispensation among the other species they collaterally decimate with their proliferation and obstinate longevity.
Not so long ago it was undoubtedly common practice for a son to smother his infirm parent with a pillow--a tear in his eye perhaps--rather than watch her suffer pointlessly, or drain the vital resources of the household with the useless burden of a spent life.
I can only surmise that the author of this article is not disclosing a religious sensibility as enamoured with the sanctity of human life as it is indifferent to life in general. Why else would suicide be dismissed so coldly as a prerogative at anyone's disposal, with not a hint of compassion for its precipitous anxieties, or the crude methods the suicide is abandoned to.
We are far from being "a culture of death", at least not when it comes to ourselves. Why do we so obsessionally, neurotically treat death as the enemy and cling to life beyond reason and at any cost? Death should be seen as a blessed release from too long life. Longevity is definitely overrated!
I for one, should I live so long, plan to party with my family and say my goodbyes properly and cheerfully before I take my prescription poison, procured from the chemist earlier, and slip peacefully into oblivion--perchance to dream.

If I get to 3 or 4 or 5 score years I am not really going to quibble about how I leave.

It's how I got here that's important.

Rhys Jones' paragraph 13 clearly contrasts the size of the respective stakes of the players when an abortion is up for consideration.

Any who cannot appraise that contrast in favour of the unborn may have already left the human race.

Squeers: Economics? I need not point out the paradox of IVF and abortion in the one society…

Quality of life? Let the owner of each life judge that.

Rhys a culture that keeps "suicide a private" matter is a culture that isolates and abandons those who may be struggling to find reasons NOT to end their lives.

Isn't it possible that legalised euthanasia, requiring "counselling", may save lives, as those who otherwise feel they have nowhere to turn, no one to talk to, now have institutions that respect their choice but seek to provide alternatives before they make it? No, no, no Rhys says. Sweep it under the rug! It's much better under there, where we can't see it.

Secondly you seem fine with the prospect that people may need to resort to starving themselves to death if they want to end their lives. How utterly inhumane.

We don't have culture of death. We have a culture of meddling by government and do-gooders in other peoples' lives/deaths. If people feel the need to end their lives, they should be allowed to or helped to if they cannot manage it themselves. As for abortions, let's leave that to the women and or families involved, too.

People are helped to die every day. Abortions are performed without reference to Right to Life busybodies.

The author it appears holds the view that the ego is the centre, object, and norm of all human life. Seemingly the footprint of 7 billion humans on planet earth is insufficient and we must preserve ‘superior’ man at all costs – including the genetically maimed yet-to-be-born, the aged and infirmed who have lived the good life and who now wish only to seek a peaceful and pain-free non-existence.

Recently a Frankenstein laboratory in New Zealand implanted human uterine genes in a cow to assist infertile humans. The uterus grew to massive proportions inside the cow and the cow exploded but there are always other non-humans on which we can inflict pain and terror so that we can breed like rabbits because it’s all for the sake of ‘humanity.’

To preserve human over-population we torture non-human species – hacking off testicles and uteruses without the benefits of anaesthetics to make the beasts fat for human consumption.

Humans incarcerate, sterilise, beat, starve, skin alive and force-feed non-humans with deadly chemicals and hormone growth substances and abuse non-humans to preserve ‘humanity.’

Humanity destroys animal habitats and the forests which support them. Humans poison rivers, oceans, air, soil – in fact the entire biosphere to allow humanity to reach its goal of some 10 billion by the year 2050. Humanity has turned feral!

Legalised euthanasia – yes - but have I missed the esoteric message in the author’s article?

Great to see how this article is reacted to!
Choice for individuals should always trump the right for others to dictate.
Anyone who thinks they have the right to hover over people and decide what they can or cannot do is naturally somewhat extreme in their views and probably cannot be reasoned with. Allowing old or sick folks to choose their exit point is pretty obvious to me, and preventing it is often such a blatant act of spite and evil that I won't even go there. Of *course* self suicide should be "legal". The alternative is to empower the worst kinds of people in society!
Abortion is a natural process for 60% or more fertilised foetuses. The first few months of life are always a throwaway experiment for nature. Part of the quality control system is to abort less-then-perfect attempts. (Intelligent design anyone?) If "human cells" are so valuable then we should all be collecting our excrement and tissues...however if "humanity" is valued then the need of a mother to live unencumbered *does* clearly trump the need of a bunch of unconscious human cells. The "potential human" argument does not apply to an advanced foetus any more than fertilised eggs...of which countless millions are destroyed each year by nature.
What anti-abortionists have as an argument is a sort of moral superiority based on extreme ignorance and/or idealism. As with the anti euthanasia brigade, empower them at your peril!
I mean seriously: We let politicians off the hook for enabling millions of deaths overseas (the recent illegal wars), then want to spend good money (Laws are expensive!) saving folks who want to die, or don't exist yet!

Thanks, Protagoras, I've suspected for some time that the pro-euthanasia argument could easily slide into eugenics and other fascist ideologies. But it's interesting to see how Green ideologies can evolve in those directions too.

As a Greens supporter (well, up until now), thank you for clarifying some of the current rationales for killing off the unwanted and unfit: 'to save the planet' - Hitler would have been a bit pissed off that he didn't use that one.

Joe Lane

The misrepresentation of facts is quite incredible. “Legalising euthanasia is completely unnecessary” “All Australians...... can choose any method they like”. The facts are that the best methods (Nembutal) and the best ambience, in the presence of friends and family, are banned by law. The suppliers of the Nembutal and the friends and family who might have liked to be present can and have been prosecuted.
Next “Proposed euthanasia laws overturn a fundamental legal principle - that no one may legally take the life of another in our society”. Wrong. New laws must confirm the right of each individual with respect to their own lives. Doctors are only required to certify that the individual is of sound mind and in some cases to assist in setting up the means. They should not and do not need to be the one to press the switch.
Finally “no one will benefit from voluntary euthanasia laws”. Everyone gains. From those who suffer from any debilitating disease, through those who gain infinite reassurance that they can depart when they choose and to even the “religious” who make such a fuss, would benefit as they can say to St Peter at the gates “Look how good I am and all the suffering I went through according to your instructions – I demand some bonus points”

On abortion – all that can be said is that there are far too many animals of one species (humans) already occupying infinitely more than their fair share of the world and so anything that reduces their population, without causing distress except to those suffering peculiar inhibitions, has to be very welcome. Regrettably the method that nature will provide to deal with the overpopulation, which is eventually inevitable, is usually starvation and disease, and will be infinitely more unpleasant.
Perhaps the whole article is spoof !! Read http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9826 The basic attitude IN THIS is all for individual rights – just the opposite here

Although I support legalisation of euthanasia, some of these replies remind me why our family doctor opposes it through concerns about the inhumanity of some who would support it for others for their own secondary gain.

Maybe Mum and Dad could live another ten to twenty years of quiet contentment after a life of denial to raise their brood, but hey, what about the 'cost' of letting them live in that big empty house when their are more 'deserving' Gen X's who could take it over, huh?

Something very nasty enters the euthanasia debate when the economics of providing medical treatment and caring for the aged is given as a reluctant reason (yeah, right!) for encouraging them to end their days. Many of these 'dispensable' older people continue to make a more positive contribution to the community than their whining, ego-centric critics who envy their meagre assets and implacably refuse to deny their own lustful appetites to obtain the same.

Then there are the loonies who support euthanasia for others because they are revulsed by mankind. If we are to believe them why are they still above ground themselves?

Yes, I sure can see some reasons why our caring GP has reservations about euthanasia, because it is London to a brick that she is often embarrassed by the impatient and greedy relatives who somehow pop up to 'assist' their 'loved' ones late in life and demand audience with Mum's GP to 'interpret' for her, while assuring the doctor that Mum is becoming a bit of a 'worry' living by herself and can't 'something' be done?

There is abundant evidence of a growing lack of empathy and sensitivity for the aged, as can be seen from the apparent lack of public concern for abuses in nursing homes where inmates might not be turned in their beds or even fed. In view of the particularly nasty and unthinking intergenerational jealousy that is about, of course there will be a large section of the community who would ease the pain of the suffering but hold back through fear of what they might unleash.

It all comes from a materialistic hegelian determinism as epitomized by brother Squeers and ilk.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8630135369495797236#

Loudmouth - You really should desist from labelling others. My son is a Liberal politician as was my deceased husband and generally on this topic, we are, and were all in agreement. I live in many worlds and many ideologies. You should try it sometime. Parochialism is for dummies.

Cornflower, thanks - let's hope that there aren't similarly 'sincere' and brow-wrinkling debates about the 'obligations' of adult offspring to 'interpret' their parents' diminished mental state to lawyers ('power of attorney') as well as doctors ('press the button'). As an old bugger myself, your comment is a timely warning to cash in and spend whatever I have as soon as possible: the Tour de France looks good this year.

Protagoras, I'm aware that many Greens are second-preference Liberals, and that there are strands in both sets of ideologies which devalue human life - ironically, one strand, among many, in favour of Mother Earth over humanity, whatever it takes, the other in favour of the Market over society, whatever it takes). Sorry if I picked the wrong horse :)

Joe

Author Rhys Jones comes across as someone who has never seriously looked at any of these issues in any depth. The article appears as if he scribbled up some mindless thoughts and then constructed these into an article.

If Rhys Jones wants us to believe that he is sincere and cares about how people die by saying that people are “perfectly entitled to end their own lives” and that “They can choose any method they like”, then why oh why is Jones not speaking out against the ban of The Peaceful Pill, a book by Australian doctors Philip Nitschke and Fiona Stewart about peaceful(non-violent and painless) suicide methods. Why is he perfectly OK with people starving themselves to death or throwing themselves from rooftops out of desperation, instead of offering them the soft, good death that euthanasia is? Very, very barbaric an unethical!

Voluntary, active euthanasia should be a human right. Nobody in the 21st century should have to endure a slow, painful, scary death if they prefer to have their life ended in an as painless, humane way as possible, surrounded by their close family.

As for abortion, it's a woman's prerogative and a private issue.
Besides, where are the 80,000 families that are lined up every year to take people's unwanted children? Perhaps meddlesome anti-choicers can drum them up, year-in, year out.
If Jones 'really' wants to prevent abortions from happening, he should try to convince the government to improve sex education and to advocate free contraception.
He also should know that countries with the most liberal abortion laws have the lowest rates of abortions.

Celivia,

So we're talking about suicide, not euthanasia ? Surely this is the point - how to separate:

* suicide, from

* euthanasia, from

* murder, or at least manslaughter, or culpable death ?

Yes, suicide should be legal, as long as there are strong, well-publicised and supportive counselling mechanisms to talk people through their inclinations to end their lives. So how does this differ from 'euthanasia' ? The involvement of other people instantly complicates the situation, it potentially compromises a person's autonomy, their right to make their own decisions. And that can too easily slide into the last category.

As an atheist, I believe that we each have one life, here and now, with nothing to come afterwards. This is all there is. I'll leave the promise of an after-life to wishful-thinkers. Death ends it all, forever. Don't rush it 'out of compassion', 'to stop their suffering', etc. It's not your call.

Joe

Loudmouth a way to address your concerns would be to require a pre-written statement giving permission to be euthanised, and indicating conditions upon which the decision can be made and by whom - if the person is not able to consciously or intelligently make the decision themselves.

That's all legislative detail and doesn't justify a blanket rejection of euthanasia altogether.

Many of these comments demonstrate the problems with Euthansia I identified. The talk of euthanising people who suffer from Alzeimers is a prime example. Even if someone expressed a wish to be euthanised at some point in the past, who is to determine if they still feel that way once they have lost their marbles? May they have changed their mind? If such a thing were to occur you could imagine the climate of fear in nursing homes around the country when the doctor visits. "Have I now been deemed senile and so am going to be killed?" This is a slippery slope we should not go down.
Yes, the means to kill ones self in a reasonably painless manner should be available to those who wish to use them, but that is entirely different from euthanasia where another person kills you.
And to those who think abortion is a private matter for the woman alone to decide seem to ignore the fact that there is someone else involved who has a much greater stake in the decision. That being the unborn child who stands to lose exactly what any one of us would lose if we were killed. The opportunity to live out the rest of our life with all the good and bad that that entails. I am yet to meet a single person who wishes they were aborted.

>>If such a thing were to occur you could imagine the climate of fear in nursing homes around the country when the doctor visits.

Rhys this is an argument to think long and hard before committing to being euthanised for dementia, not an argument against legalising it. Don't you think this is a consequence someone will weigh when they draw up their conditions? I know I certainly would. I'd be putting the decision firmly in the hands of someone I can trust, coupled with a doctor of my choice - and any other number of pre-conditions.

To me it seems like you have a pre-existing aversion to the idea of euthanasia at all and you are creating hypotheticals to cater to it. So let's extend the hypothetical further. What's to stop those in nursing homes from anulling their previous stipulation, if they're so afraid of being deemed senile and euthanised? Do you really think there will be a situation where their wishes will be denied? "No, you already agreed!! Too late. We get to kill you now." At which point they are dragged out kicking and screaming.

Highly doubtful.

It really is pointless to make a comment after Celivia has expressed my feelings so well.

However, everyone seems to have missed the big point and that is that the fear in making make items as euthanasia an acceptable practice is all based on the influence of the church in this "non-secular" country of ours. May not be the reason that they state, if they ever state one at all, but it is the insidious influence of the church and the timid and corruptible politicians who, when they get a seat in what they see is 'the ultimate place of power' in this country, do not want to lose it and alienating the church is one sure way to do that.

Why can't I at almost 80 clearly state to someone that if I want to leave the only world I will ever know, then I should be able to state this NOW, while I make sense.
Look then at the idle and worthless religious practitioners as the devil in this story. Then count your lucky stars that you don't live in the US where 90% of the elected politicians are all Zion-prostitutes, selling their votes for Zionist largesse. So when 10 people are murdered and the hopeless President said that the position is 'unsustainable', it was the strongest condemnation he uttered. Similarly, we toe the line too, this time not yet because of Jews but the church, any colour you choose.

All our respected politicians may not be as dominated as the feckless Abbott, who would vote against everything progressive such as abortion and euthanasia, a loyal Roman soldier and Pell-prostitute down to his toenails. But few are like Julia Irwin, Federal Member for Fowler, NSW whose Adjournment Speech last week shows clearly she fears no one but hates hypocrisy and injustice.
Where do we find another 50 like her to let some light into our thinking processes while at the same time removing the Abbott's of this world, who would have been better suited living in the first decades of the 20th Century.

The fact is that the bleeding hearts will not acknowledge that tortured souls are being euthanized every day of every year by compassionate doctors (with or without consent) so why not pass the responsibility onto the families who have received written express wishes from their loved ones in the event of a painful and intolerable existence?

These expressed written conditions could also be officially lodged at more than one agency - perhaps a government agency and the AMA to ensure compliance?

The alternative is that a few patients wanting to end the agony but are refused a dignified exit, may be able to shuffle out on two legs (if they're lucky) to the hospice’s back garden and hang themselves from a tree and then botch it!

I discovered that my mother was euthanized by a compassionate doctor (without my consent) but after witnessing her chronic state of agony (and my profound inability to help her), I will be forever, eternally grateful that she was released from her misery.

The author's misrepresentation of the current situation for those who choose to end their lives and the caviler dismissal of the suffering and risk involved in home made methods is telling.

People taking a mix of pill's without expert advice and no sure fire way of ensuring that attempts are not made to revive them risk increased suffering (and less capacity to end a life that they no longer choose).

Some who still have a greater physical capacity may choose stronger methods again risking failure and greater injury but also leaving a mess for someone else to clean up. All have to face the proposition that if they don't involve someone else in the process and potentially leave them open to prosecution that they person who find's them may be someone unprepared to do so.

People may have some options to end their own lives if they choose but for most they carry unnecessarily risks and potential trauma both to the person trying to end their life and to those who for whatever reason become involved.

R0bert

Rhys Jones

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

By the time someone with Alzheimer's was killed (I hate euphemisms like "euthenased") they would have lost the capacity to know what was going to happen. Any time before then they would be free to change their minds.

A simple test would be to get the doctor to ask them if they want to die now. If they are capable of formulating an intelligent answer then desist.

Have you ever actually seen someone in the final stages of Alzheimers? It ain't pretty.

Because of SILLY people like you I may have to kill myself YEARS before I would have to if I could give instructions to have the deed done for me when I'm completely gaga.

People like you DISGUST me.

"All Australians" can commit suicide, but even still, suicide should be kept a "private matter." Better to starve yourself to death than die with dignity. Women who choose abortion are greedy because there are many "childless couples" who could take their unwanted babies. Those evil mothers!

At best, Jones' argument is simplistic. At worst,it is insensitive. Jones may identify as 'pro-life', but he really seems concerned with patronising those in difficult and painful situations

Thanks Cornflower for articulating what I feel...the greedy relatives angle of this debate is the whole point!!
How many people are in debt?
How many parents are sitting in a house that has great market value?
Put two and two together and BINGO!!
I witnessed this situation of a family friend.
Parents sent to a nursing home (which broke their hearts and probably killed them) because the adult offspring has power of attorney.
Situations like this will be why I oppose euthanasia.
You don't have to actually be dying or suffering from dementia.

Abby refer to Grayzie's post. There shouldn't be a blanket rejection of euthanasia altogether because of the potential for abuse which can be offset by proper safeguards.

I can't see why I should have to kill myself weeks in advance of what would be a inevitable, natural, but lingering, unpleasant death from motor neurone if I develop it, because some people are worried that others might try and bump off Grandma.

It would be traumatic for my family to say the least. Then there is how I would do it - poison, gas, hanging, drowning, or launching myself off something tall. Some poor sod would have to clean up the body. It would also probably muck up my life insurance which is there to help my family in case of my death, if the company got difficult about a suicide.

I'd sooner hang in as long as possible, enjoy my time, and then with my family sorted, drift off with medical help.

I think many elders are more worried about being caught in a similar situation of being powerless and incapacitated and wanting to go, but not being able to achieve it. There is a family legend about a distant Great Uncle who was a doctor about 50 years back. He used to leave his terminally ill patients a killer dose of pain relief and told them 'not' to take it as it would finish them. Nobody apparently took it. They probably liked having the option though. The old boy himself at very great age suddenly went quietly and the family always wondered. Very organised if so!

"Rhys Jones

Are you being deliberately obtuse?"

Of course he is stevenlmeyer, all of these arguments have been debunked ages ago (not to mention in this thread- posts conviently avoided by the opposition) and are only parroted out to the ignorant people already against (and would avoid reading evidence to the contrary).
Hence why you, me and Protagoras are probably wasting our time, as the only people who actually buy into this stuff ARE the most parochial individuals on the planet, as Loudmouth demonstrated when he could only construct a logical assumption of the Greens from base stereotypes of Liberal and Labor.

Here I'll prove it right now by doing a quick rundown of some very basic flaws in the argument they keep upholding

Misuse of Euthanasia
1- people euthanised against their will- except they'd, you know, protest. I think if they do not protest and they have been proven to have endorsed the idea of being euthanised prior, it would be safer to say they still had no problems with it. If they never made such statements prior and were unable to protest now, assume they do NOT want to be bumped off.
2- the evil inlaws- really? You mean they suddenly had the last straw and couldn't wait any longer for that extra cash?
3- The numerous easy methods for a family member to bump off a relative and make it look natural or accidental (including in the hospital anyway)
4- Mental illness disqualifying 'acceptable' request to be euthanised. How does one define this- or for that matter, if someone who can't function properly wants to die, how exactly is forcing him to live 'humane'?

Now watch the empty space afterwards as people try to pretend it's a eugenics and money-saving thing. Also, a few people will construct a few more cases where the person's motive for dying is "wrong".

As for abortion, I already made one that Rhys pretended not to see (evident in the contradictory assumption), so I'll get back in detail later. I'm very alarmed that such a person is a psychiatric nurse studying law.

Hi Loudmouth- Grayzie replied to your question to me perhaps better than I could have.
Euthanasia, meaning a good, soft death, should always be thought of as legal, voluntary and active; never as involuntary or passive- and never outside a euthanasia law.
I only mentioned the Peaceful Death because Rhys glorified suicide. I fully agree with RObert regarding suicide.
IF someone like Rhys advocates suicide, then at least advocate the most safe forms and methods of suicide, as discussed in the book.
However, euthanasia is always preferable because it is kinder to the patient and their loved ones. Suicide, when euthanasia is illegal, will always remain a very lonely thing to do, because loved ones have to be excluded.

Two people in my family opted for, and were granted euthanasia. I have discussed this in a previous euthanasia debate some time ago.
In short, a woman in her mid-late twenties, mother of a 4-year old daughter gained permission to be euthanised. She suffered from terminal cancer, had had several operations, chemo therapy and radiation. Her cancer had advanced too much and there was no outlook that she could ever recover.
She suffered much pain. If she took morphine for pain, she suffered nausea and drowsiness. If she didn’t take enough morphine she suffered unbearable, incessive pain.
Her doctors gave her another month to live, at the most, and she would gradually worsen.
After a professional counselled her little daughter and husband, a time for euthanasia was arranged. Her daughter had put all of her soft animals as a blanket over her mother and held her hand. Her husband held her other hand. Music of her choice was playing, the curtains were drawn. Her parents were present in the room. She told everybody that she loved them. She thanked them for letting her go. She was given the introvenous euthanatica of her choice and passed away very, very peacefully as if she was falling asleep.

Isn’t this method much more humane than forcing her to live a miserable and painful extra month?

TBC

Also, my mother and uncle have both made arrangements for euthanasia while they are still in their late 60s, early 70s.
It is an involved process. They had to talk to their own family doctor, then to a counsellor, and to a second doctor who all took independent notes. My mother had to keep explaining every little detail. Doctors needed to be sure at which exact point she would want to be euthanised incase she suffered from alzheimers plus a painful disease without positive outlook.

Also, for those who oppose euthanasia for ‘slippery slope’ reasons, keep in mind that the vast majority of patients who request euthanasia are denied it. Often, other treatments and pain relief can be tried first.
And only about 65% of the patients that were granted euthanasia actually go through with it.

For many, many patients it is just enough to know that they have permission and can have their life ended in a painless manner at any time they please. Having this reassurance actually gives them the courage to try living… perhaps one more day, one at the time. Until they die a natural death. Just knowing that they won’t have to choke to death when paralysed, or have some other scary or painful death, really relaxes these patients. Being relaxed and reassured, in turn, somehow eases their suffering.

I won't comment on the authors thoughts on abortion because I too feel that it is no one's business except the parents and Doctor.
In any case, it is already legal in Australia, so that battle is already won.

Euthanasia, on the other hand, remains undecided both medically and legally, so discussion should be encouraged.

JL Deland, I feel for you if your family has a history of MND.
I have in the past and still do nurse people with this terrible disease.

I too would feel exactly as you do if I was diagnosed with this cruel disease.

I also care for terminally ill people with cancer, lung diseases, multiple sclerosis, Huntington's disease, Alzheimer disease and other forms of dementia, to name a few.

Having also worked in Aged Care Facilities, I can say that probably 75% of residents regularly ask to be 'put out of my misery'. The ones that don't, are usually those who no longer can speak or think for themselves.

As long as we ensure that people aren't clinically depressed and therefore may be able to be helped to enjoy what little life they have left, I believe voluntary euthanasia should be legal.

However, as a medical professional, I worry how this request will be medically managed. Questions to be sorted would include:
*Will all Doctors be expected to give that 'final' injection?

*If some doctors refuse, will there be doctors who are known to be sympathetic to the requests to die who will be expected to give the 'final' injection to patients unknown to them?

*Will there then be a few doctors who are doing 'the final injection' very often?

*How will they cope with that job?

*Will doctors be allowed to 'authorize' nurses to give this injection?
If so, what if the nurse refuses on religious grounds etc ?

Suzeonline. Easy answer for me about unwilling medical participation in such things. I believe in civil liberties for everyone. That means religious and moral objections are respected and the State pulls out it's finger out and puts in real assistance to people wanting access to euthanasia or abortion (free safe and legal thanks) instead of trying to bully reluctant medical staff into it.

The support of that some people who pushed a secular and political line on forcing medicos in Victoria to be engaged in against their conscience even to a small degree in abortion whilst labelling it civil liberties I think was largely an embarressment and undermined confidence in the broader civil liberties movement. It certainly bit the same people in the rear when they then tried to push for a Australian Bill of Rights. There may have been lots of lawyer wriggling that happened about the whole thing, but in the end the Victorian Charter of Rights which was supposed to be a model for the Australian one was made to look a joke. Stop start Civil liberties! Steam is probably still coming from Frank Brennan's ears.

So it would take some work, but I'm sure there are enough committed people around to make it happen without coercing people to be involved. Locally there was talk of letting the local hospice go Catholic. Well, that should be avoided straight away - that's asking for trouble. Personally too, if I want assistance, I would want it from a happy supportive person, not someone who is only doing it because they compelled too.

Rhys Jones

Celivia has responded to your article with experience and far more understanding of the issue of euthanasia than you have expressed in your article.

My mother has scleroderma, a disease that attacks skin cells anywhere in the body. The result is that the dermis becomes rigid, inflexible. In my mother's case it is her lungs that are primarily affect by this incurable disease. She is on oxygen 24/7 - without which she would die. However, this disease cannot be halted, eventually the lack of oxygen will most likely result in a heart attack. The affects of oxygen depletion can also be observed in her brain function - her memory most significantly. My family and I are grateful that her capacity to reason is still intact. As such, we have had many discussions should she reach a time when the current medical aids no longer support her. The hospital she attends is aware that should she suffer another heart attack, she does not want to be revived. My mother is very clear on how she wants to live the remainder of her life. It is a decision between my mother, her family and her doctor.

It is no-one else's business.

As for bringing abortion into a debate on euthanasia, I agree in full with Suzeonline. At the very least it is a different issue with different consequences. The only thing the topics of euthanasia and abortion have in common are the people who would control the personal lives of others, that they would inflict beliefs on others and increase suffering to an inhumane extent.

I can only begin to imagine what my mother (very much a lady in the old fashioned sense) would say to the likes of you Rhys Jones. It would probably be less than you deserve.

My wife and I are both healthy and old. We do not want a lingering painful death nor do we want others to suffer such a fate. We belong to the Voluntary Euthanasia Society of Queensland.

The article is a nobrainer, and I see no point in arguing with it.

Both the government and the opposition will not allow the Northern Territory law which provided for a peaceful release from terminal suffering to be reinstated. In fact they even may introduce net censorship to prevent access to sites or information about sites which give VE information.

http://www.exitinternational.net/ is the website for exit international. You can read about the Australian government censorship plans there, and get information about other related societies.

http://www.peacefulpillhandbook.com/ is the website for getting end of life choices online.

http://www.lib.flinders.edu.au/resources/sub/healthsci/a-zlist/euthanasia.html
directs you to other related links where you may locate a voluntary euthanasia society in your area.

Thanks for the links david f.

This is probably the single most superficial article on euthanasia and abortion I have seen in a long time.

Abortion is about the right of the mother to decide what happens to her body. The rights of the fetus cannot over ride this.

Similarly, with euthanasia if a person no longer wishes to live, he/she should have the right to die legally. Any difficulties can easily be resolved by a suitably qualified review panel. The person can then pass away with dignity.

The obvious and frequent scenario where the victim is so incapacitated as to be unable to self administer seems to have eluded this author.

Either he thinks we are morons or this is simply an inflammatory thread.

Shadow Minister,

<<The obvious and frequent scenario where the victim is so incapacitated as to be unable to self administer seems to have eluded this author.>>

So that rules out advanced Alzheimer's etc. You're right, the right to take a life hinges solely on the autonomy and rights of the individual involved. If somebody is so far gone that they can't make informed judgments, then - apart from turning the machines off - any action by anybody else which leads to their unsanctioned death is either manslaughter or murder.

People in full possession of their faculties should have every right to take their own lives, StevenLMeier, by their own hand, DIY exit: but please don't call it euthanasia, voluntary or otherwise. It's suicide - and even then, counselling should be available. After all, it's your last chance, folks.

Of course we already have a gutless and inhumane form of euthanasia that Rhys Jones would no doubt approve of, euphemistically called "palliative care". My first wife was a vigorous 39 when she died, eventually, under palliative care. She had melanoma and tumours had spread to various organs when it was decided there was no hope of a cure (a no-brainer for my wife, who was a nurse). Rather than a quick, dignified and painless (also for me and our four kids) assisted death, she technically died of dehydration rather than cancer. She was kept in a semi-conscious state with drugs while all food and water was withheld. It took I don't know how many days for her to die; I remember watching the urine in her catheter (there was no need to change it) get darker as time went by until it looked like burnt caramel. I remember waiting endlessly for her to die; watching her vomit blackish bile near the end, and taking shallow breaths that became ever less frequent but somehow more urgent in their exhausted, automated racking. Several times, when I thought she'd taken her last breath, her body would suddenly convulse pathetically once more, and her gaping mouth would desperately suck in air. I think a couple of minutes must have passed before I finally believed she was dead. Only the day before this event, days since she'd last shown any sign of consciousness, I held our one year old daughter in front of her and said, "there's your mummy". To my amazement, mummy's lips simulated distinct little kisses. Thankfully, all the kids to were too young to be traumatised.
The point is, palliative care is euthanasia by neglect, it's a morbid ritual designed to appease the letter of the law. F--- the law, I say!

Thankyou Squeers. How could anyone argue against a dignified chosen exit after reading your family's story.

An incredible amount of suffering is caused by people inflicting their distorted world view on others.

I've had to have a couple of pets put down with great sadness. It was a reassuring experience. I'd like to go with as little fuss and pain as my animals in a gentle, supportive environment, and not fighting for every breath with my family watching on and suffering too, because someone else calls it living.

Unfortunately in this case, animals have more rights than humans, and indeed someone who didn't assist them by having them euthanased, might be prosecuted for cruelty.

Yeah, people are like pets, aren't they, really ? Lose one, get another one. Or writing off a favourite car: claim on insurance and get another one, you get over these things. Not quite, Mr/Ms Deland.

Squeers, I feel very much for you. My wife Maria died about two years ago, from advanced liver cancer. She had three weeks between finding out and saying her last goodbyes. She went much more peacefully, without (this always amazes me) any fear, knowing that it was the absolute end. She was the one who brought up funeral arrangements, who to conduct the service (an old friend who happened to be a Presbyterian minister) even though she was an atheist (more for his piece of mind, I think). In those last three weeks, I think she would have had the equivalent of one meal, so yes, it's starvation and thirst that can cause a lot of stress and weakening. She complained towards the end of not being able to sleep, but we knew that the morphine to ease the pain and let her sleep would also take her. So the nurses gave her the morphine, she went quietly to sleep while we talked to her, and 24 hours later she took her last breath. The big, dreamless sleep.

But would we have wanted to hasten the process ? Not on your life.

Every case is different, I'm certain. But the bottom line is surely the right of the person to make the choices, not relations.

Either way, I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone.

Joe Lane

Well - you really are a loud mouth aren't you Joe! Well named.

I knew when I put that up that one up about animals having more rights than humans (and they do!) that some person who regards themselves as the champion of human rights who would have us suffering on way past what is kind or tolerable, would be deliberately obtuse (maybe not deliberately obtuse in your case) and would say 'well she thinks we are like pets'.

No Joe, humans are more than that - which is why we don't deserve to be at the mercy of people with attitudes like yours. Choices! oh crap Joe, you would have me drowning in my own juices while your own cat you would have put down if they were suffering like that!

Well I hope you would because otherwise you are a truly sick individual! Glad to say on this forum you have been well and truly shouted down by people who are sane and well grounded. If only people like you didn't have the say in Parliament,people wouldn't be having to take their lives before they are ready and in unpleasant ways.

Loudmouth,
"People in full possession of their faculties should have every right to take their own lives... but please don't call it euthanasia, voluntary or otherwise. It's suicide - and even then, counselling should be available. After all, it's your last chance, folks."

I don't disagree with what you say, but legal suicide does not help those, who are not able to commit suicide.
These people might have more reasons to die than those who are still able to kill themselves.

I don't understand your outburst against JL Deland. I thought that his point about euthanising animals was sensitive and showed twisted logic of human ethics when it comes to dying. We cannot stand by and let our pets suffer for long periods of time, but on the other hand, we are forced to let our human loved ones suffer for indefinite periods of time and cannot help them die.

I DO understand your point that euthanasia has to be voluntary, but like I said in a previous post, this can all be arranged when the person is able to. That's why I gave the example of my mum and uncle, who are healthy and well, and who have euthanasia arranged might there ever be a need.

Dear squeers,
I sincerely feel for you and your family that you've had to deal with such sadness and cruelty. Your story is a very clear example of why the law needs to change- why there is a need for a euthanasia law in this country.

"The point is, palliative care is euthanasia by neglect, it's a morbid ritual designed to appease the letter of the law."
The only thing I can say about this is that this type of cruelty cannot, by definition, be euthanasia. Euthanasia always means a good, or a soft death. What your wife had to go through is far from soft and humane. The palliative care that had her die a slow, scary and painful death was no less inhumane than death by torture.

Thanks Celivia, I'm glad that you got my point. I would have hated to have offended Squeers after his moving post. I think that Joe is trying to get a handle on any angle that he can. As he doesn't really have much to bring into battle as ammunition, he has to twist things to try and make it look as though someone like me is a sociopath.

He doesn't have a right to dicate to others that they should suffer pain and a loss of dignity when they don't subscribe to his world view, and he probably deep down knows it.

Anyway great news from the Apple Isle. http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2934736.htm

It might not happen this time, but in the end it will happen. People want a say in what happens to them at the end of their lives and quite rightly. Good old Tassie!

Yes, J L Deland, 'People want a say in what happens to them at the end of their lives and quite rightly.' Exactly ! The right to die should be that person's, not their relatives' or anybody else's. Of course I'm aware how painful situations can be, not least for Squeers and myself and our families, but surely you can look beyond that and understand how giving that right to others, apart from denying people their autonomy, would open the door to an enormous amount of misuse.

Yes, it is a matter of the person's right to choose, life or death. It's that person's life, their only life ever in all of eternity. That right should never be taken from anybody, no matter how tragic the circumstances. OF COURSE they should be made as comfortable as possible, to minimise their distress and that of their loved ones. But that too is ultimately their decision.

Joe

Dear Rhys Jones,
The reason for the culture of death is very simple. Because of pride and rebelion we have rejected the bible because of Gods word " Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" and chose to believe that if we get the knowledge of good and evil we will be like God. I have found if you do what is right and do it right it works but stinking thinking (self righteousness) is our culture for even the most progressive thinker knows it is not right to kill.

At least Richie10 is honest where he comes from (though doing nothing for his case)- as opposed to those who masquerade as secular opposition (but blatantly fail to pass off convincingly- and still doing nothing for their case).

King Hazza you obviously have failed to understand my article.
For your information I am an atheist and a hard core religion hating atheist at that. However that doesn't make me evil. While I used to be a supporter of abortion rights, I have in recent years come to see the fallacy in the arguments that support it. They are usually based upon the definition of a human or person as opposed to an animal. This is the big flaw in their reasoning. It is not sentience or self awareness or any other particular human attribute that makes killing a person wrong. The problem with killing humans is that when you kill one you deprive them of the rest of their life. When I look at my beautiful 8 year old daughter and think that her mother could legally have killed her prior to birth, depriving her of the experience of a life and all that it entails, I wonder how I ever felt abortion was a reasonable response to the inconvenience of bearing a child. Human life should be valued because without it we have nothing at all. Just show me one person who wishes they were aborted. As far as euthanasia goes, I don't object to people killing themselves at all, and would support the availability of the means for them to do so peacefully. However, I believe making this a formal, legal, government sanctioned process holds far greater risks than anyone who has commented here realises.

Rhys Jones:
<It is not sentience or self awareness or any other particular human attribute that makes killing a person wrong.>
Presumably then, you're a vegetarian? If, <The problem with killing humans is that when you kill one you deprive them of the rest of their life.> is your objection, and it's not based on "sentience and self awareness", how do you square the preciousness of human life with the staggering loss of life we impose on all other species, which could be reduced merely by curtailing our own birthrate.
The ethical dilemma over abortion is far less troublesome than it is over euthanasia, as the unborn child is only human in potentia, whereas the aged and infirm are fully human and worldly-wise. Attaining full humanity is is a cultural process.
It's fascinating to me that you adopt this stance when you're a <hard core religion hating atheist> I'd like to know more of your philosophy..

Hi Squeers,
I don't think the sentience argument works with animals either because many of the mammals at least are self aware, feel pain and other emotions that we would consider human attributes. The reason I don't feel the same way about animals is because they are "not" human. I don't feel any real obligation toward them other than an obligation not to inflict unnecessary suffering. I simply boils down to them not being of my species. Some will not consider that a relevant distinction but I do. There was a time when it was not considered wrong to kill a member of a different tribe, race or even social class. We have extended our concept of who has a right to life to all people no matter what race, religion or social status they have in recent centuries and decades. I see no moral value in drawing an arbitrary line at 20 weeks gestation for this right to apply. After all, it is the potential life that is important. What is to come, not what has gone before. You can't take someone's past from them, only their future and a foetus has as much potential future as anyone regardless of haw many weeks gestation it is.
Just as an aside, I would not extend this right to an embryo in a Petri dish as this does not have the potential to develop into a human being without someone taking particular active measures such as implanting it into a uterus. I do not feel we have an obligation to take these measures any more than we have an obligation to have as many children as possible.

Hi JL Deland,
I agree- nobody should have the right to force anyone to suffer pain and loss of dignity. Thank you for the link, I’m glad that Lara Giddings is drawing up legislation that would support people's right to die with dignity.
I think that the delay with legislating euthanasia is, that so many in our govt are Christians.

Loudmouth,
Just so that I fully understand, are you saying that you are not against euthanasia as long as it is voluntary- meaning that it is requested by the person?
But this is exactly what the concept of euthanasia comprises within a euthanasia law, doesn’t it?

There is much less chance that there is ‘misuse’ involved when euthanasia is legal. There is not only one doctor involved, but a small medical professional team, who all need to agree and OK the patient’s request. And if one doctor would go beyond the decision of the medical team, s/he can be held accountable. Why would a doctor risk his career?
It would bring these things out in the open, rather than keep them behind closed doors.

Without euthanasia laws, involuntary euthanasia happens randomly if there are no euthanasia laws in place, when patients are given an overdose of morphine. Doctors do get away with this because they have the intention to relieve pain.

Why not just bring it all out in the open, let patients orchestrate their own lives, rather than having to wait until on our death beds and hoping that doctors will make a decision that we are happy with.
We have no choice today of what will happen to us when we near the end of our lives.

Without euthanasia laws in place, we will never have any say about the end of our own lives because there simply are no options available to us.

TBC

Rhys,
I wish you would have separated euthanasia from abortion and not discussed both issues in one thread. Both are involved and comprehensive issues. I totally disagree with you on abortion but I’m chosing to stick to the topic of euthanasia in this discussion because we need euthanasia to be legalised.
But thanks for replying to Squeers about your philosophy, as I was very curious about it, too. Very weird way of thinking, but as I said I will let the abortion discussion go for now.

Can you explain how you would deal with the problem of those patients, who are unable to kill themselves?
There are patients who are bed-ridden, or those who are paralysed, and who would rather be dead sooner than later. They are not able to kill themselves apart from refusing to take food and liquid. But it must be very clear to you from Squeers’ story that this is an utterly cruel, unnecessary way to die.
What do you suggest for these patients?

My mother went to a nursing home because she was losing her faculties, and my father could no longer care for her. She know what was happening to her and said, “I want to die.” If only she could have had her wish granted. For seven years she was in bed in a vegetative state.

The names below are fiction, but it is from a story I published thinking of my mother’s ending. I am Barn Lefko in the story.

“When he was a child she would call attention to the shapely nose, "Isn't it a beautiful nose?" Sometimes she would say that in front of visitors, and little Barn would cringe. The last time he had seen the nose, it was the same chalky colour as the rest of the face. A year ago his cousin from Tyre had called Lefko. Somehow an attendant had let her fall from the bed. Mother landed on her face and broke her nose. The beautiful nose was broken, and there were dark circles under the eyes. She looked more alive than in years. Change. What would be the use of moving her to another nursing home? That could happen anyplace. Golden Hill had the best reputation. The nose was set, the bruises disappeared, and Mother stayed at Golden Hill.

She hadn't worn glasses for so long that the little dents on the sides of the bridge had disappeared. She used to rub her nose so the dents would go away when she took off her glasses. He saw the lashes. They were whiter than the chalky skin. The fine hair was neatly brushed. White sheets, white blanket, chalky skin, silky white hair, pale lips around a black hole, black nostril openings. He saw them as he would those of a dentist. He saw the long white hairs on the chin (if she had been aware of them, she would have been horrified), the slight bulge under the blanket and the arthritic hand clutching a roll of cloth. White and black. For years he had thought of his Mother as already dead.”

Celivia, at least with the now legal 'living will' (in W.A. anyway), people can spell out when they do not want to be revived or resuscitated, and when they don't want to have any further medical treatment.

Many people who get to the stage of not being able to say if they want to live or die, can at least have already written a legally binding will to say 'no more active treatment' if there is no hope for them some time in the future.

Before this came in (or if they had no living will), medical staff's hands were tied if they did not want to give antibiotics to someone with a terminal illness like end-stage Alzheimers disease who had developed pneumonia, but the patient's family members did want the treatment.

Many times, we have resuscitated people who have had dense strokes or other life-threatening irreversible brain disorders, purely because the family demanded it, only to watch the poor patient live on in a vegetative state for many months or even years.

Many people say that life is sacred- any 'life' at all.
I wonder if these people have ever watched a person in a vegetative state (little brain activity) slowly waste away over months or years?
They have no meaningful interaction with people or their environment, and no real 'life' left at all.

Anyone who believes these people should be resuscitated or given life-saving medical treatment should be charged with cruelty to humans.

...and going back to the other disturbed mindset of "the heartbeat must take full priority"- that states that quality of life is completely insignificant compared to the fact they are technically 'alive'.
It applies to both Euthanasia AND abortion- I've already listed numerous quick arguments supporting both morally and practically, as have practically everyone else here- and you have continued to avoid.

Also, the 'capacity to develop into full life', aside from being an enormously unlikely prospect from a would-be-aborted-if-it-werent-banned child, complete with social consequences for everyone and emotional upbringing consequences for the child, also has the inconvenient logical consistency to an ounce of sperm or an egg- which die all the time when people have intercourse or menstruate.
It is nothing but an arbitrary line STILL- we just pick an arbitrary line with most social importance. In short, a parent with an actual intent and a plan for their child is better for everyone than a person who wanted to kill the child but was forced to raise it.

Euthanasia- I've clearly wasted my time going into so many reasons why the "slippery slope" label is dishonest rubbish.

Dear Rhys Jones,
thanks for the extra detail, though we still disagree. It seems to me you speak of the "life to come", "life and all that it entails", naively. Life is fundamentally "unsatisfactory", to use the understated parlance of translated Buddhism, which defines life, perfectly reasonably, as "suffering" (dukkha). The worst thing about being a parent is not being able to protect your child from the suffering that is its inevitable lot in life, more or less. One of the symptoms, for me, of our deluded age, is our coupled sanctification of life and fear of death, invested more often than not in an unthinking commodity fetishism rather than any genuine philosophy. That's why people often turn to religion, to supplement their disappointment in sensual pleasure with an equally childish indulgence in in fantasies of their spiritual transcendence. Lacking this comforter (dummy), Plenty of philosophers have come quite reasonably to the conclusion that it were better never to have lived. That's debatable, of course, according to the measure you make of sensual experience, itself dependent on its privileges and quotient of suffering. There's no escaping ethics; how, since you can't relate to animals (only humans), do you square your agonising over abortions in the west with the starving humanity that lives elsewhere? Which should we preserve first; the profligate life in embryo; the 'decadent' life (aged, infirm, 'degenerate', on the wane); or the impoverished 'other'?
We live in a fool's paradise; to be too precious about any of these is luxurious. To be indifferent to life is brutish and inhumane. But our celebration of life is bogus and hypocritical when it only extends to our own, and at such cost. Ethics is the burden of the thinking animal, but it's too often rationalised and refined away.

I agree with Rys Jones article about a culture of death. My father has dementia but he still enjoys life and occassionally comes out with some appropriate remarks which indicate that he is aware of what is going on even though he rarely speaks. He had not spoken to me for a week or so and then yesterday he said as I was leaving, "Ok then Good night". Small mercies but it shows that dementia patients are not living dead.

nohj

I am very pleased to hear that you father is still enjoying life. Is it early stages dementia? It is always heartwarming, when a dementia sufferer is able to recognise their loved ones.

You are fortunate that you father is not in constant pain and bed-ridden. Did you father, while still in full mental capability, set instructions for his treatment if he should reach a vegetative state. What would you do if he does succumb to being bed-ridden and dependant on life support? Pneumonia is a common complication when the frail elderly reach a point in their illness such as dementia. I don't know if you read my earlier post, but my mother has a slow irreversible illness and has made arrangements to not be resuscitated should she suffer a heart attack. However, she is distressed that should she become bed-ridden she will not be able to pass gently from the world but will either have to let herself starve or turn off her oxygen. I can barely tolerate writing this. But is has to be said, as others have said, our laws regarding the suffering of the elderly are cruel and unnecessary.

Celivia

I think the reasoning of R Jones linking abortion and euthanasia was nothing more than an attempt to create some credibility for his claim that our society has a "Culture of Death". The two ethical questions have little in common. One is legal, treats women as responsible and prevents unwanted children, while the other treats the elderly callously forcing them to suffer until death. Neither is indicative of a "death culture". The former respects the autonomy of women the latter is just paternalism at its most obnoxious.

Dear Rhys Jones,
As I can no longer work I seek other ways to pass the time and as I received little formal education and have a thirst for knowledge and a passion for Jesus I have taught my self to surf the net. This morning I googled 'Evidence for God' and the knowledge available on that sight will keep me occupied for a long time as they challenge much of what I believed. Any one who seeks Truth will find this site very informative.
Regards Richie 10

Severin, indeed the "culture of death" is a misconception (and most likely a deliberately engineered one) to try to slander people who don't like the idea of spending the last few weeks of my life in hospital and don't like the idea of bringing unwanted children into this world, as some kind of odd morbid individuals.

If you want a REAL debate on the two issues, try the Rational Skepticism Forums, there are highly intricate arguments debunking the rubbish copy-and-paste arguments Rhys and co. gave, and actually more logical arguments against that actually came from exploring options, as opposed to a lobbyist trying to spin the issue.

I'd actually paste more here, if it weren't for limited post count and the fact that no opposition has even dared to answer the existing arguments put down already.

Tere, (for ANYONE to read) there have since been whole new arguments and hypothesis, instead of ones debunked ages ago.

Your majesty,

<<Euthanasia- I've clearly wasted my time going into so many reasons why the "slippery slope" label is dishonest rubbish.>>

Now that we are starting to get to the meat and potatoes of this discussion - the elimination of people with advanced Alzheimer's, and who are otherwise incapable of making decisions - I think that, yes, we are starting to look at a very slippery slope.

It's puzzled me, as an atheist, about who supports the hoary principles of other-induced euthanasia. Since there is nothing after death, I have assumed that believers would be much more casual about topping someone - after all, if you've been good, their illusion is that you go somewhere desirable afterwards, so surely, I thought naively, the sooner the better ? That religious people would be more likely to support euthanasia ? But no. Weird.

Those with longer memories may recall the actions of the Nazis in eliminating the unwanted (mentally deficient, senile, insane, etc.)from the outset of their rule. I'm not suggesting that those on this thread who in favour of 'easing the burden' for other people are all Nazis, but surely even they can see that there is indeed a slippery slope, with the eugenic solution of the Nazis at the bottom of it ?

The right to suicide - call it what you like - yes, with counselling. It is an act of personal autonomy, personal choice. The right to do it 'for' somebody ? Precisely NOT if they insensate, incapable, unaware - without any afterlife, this is our only shot at being in the world, and nobody should have the right to take that one chance away.

Joe

In most species, it’s common for all females to be fertile the same time of the year which results in a common mating season. In humans and some other primates, sexuality is far less related to the timing of fertility. More precisely, the entire year is a mating season since most primates have a chronic interest in sex. However, the number of other primates on the planet are drastically diminished because most primates (similar to other non-humans) are slaughtered, one way or another, by homo-sapiens.

Pro-lifers are reluctant to acknowledge that millions of human embryos are conceived through sexual desire alone without any desire to bear children. Millions of unwanted children are born each year into a hell undreamt of but the same pro-lifers are the vociferous humans who object to birth control.

Some pro-lifers are so adamant about their own beliefs that they blow up abortion clinics, killing patients, foetuses and medical staff. Pro-lifers appear to suffer from moral inconsistency. And why does a sperm cell and egg have more rights than a blood cell - more particularly a sperm cell or egg which is genetically abnormal but has resulted in a pregnancy?

Pro-life ego-centric humans remain indifferent to the fact that animals and humans suffer alike but they do not die alike. Embryos (and humans) in civilised societies are killed for compassionate reasons but pro-lifers refrain from witnessing a calf scream, seeing the calf suspended live from the rafters, witnessing the blood brutally spilt by humans, witnessing the baby being taken away from its mother or witnessing the look of terror in an animal's eye.

Alas, the 'superior' homo-sapien enjoys engaging in the suffering of non-humans for human prosperity, thrills and cheap hamburgers.

Only “the righteous man regardeth the life of his beast” but the ever-increasing up-swell of ego-consciousness of human beings remains a fabrication - much of it perpetuated by religious zealots - an exclusive invention of humans for their own interests and perhaps, eventually, their downfall?

Wachyu talkin' about, Protagoras ?

Rhys Jones:

Nowhere in your article do you even consider the rights of people over their own body. You and the church feels that you have the right to force someone to endure misery.

A new article of interest. A foetus feels no pain before 24 weeks.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/human-foetus-feels-no-pain-before-the-age-of-24-weeks-says-new-study/story-e6frg6so-1225884262939

Loudmouth, if you stopped living up to your namesake and actually listened once in a while I wouldn't have to embarrass you. Allow me to outline why by repeating what I already said on page 5 and shouldn't even have to say again just because you couldn't be bothered reading it the first time;

If a person is under a debilitating disease preventing them from making the decision at that point, then there would have to be a requirement of PRIOR (that means BEFORE if that word is too confusing) will to be euthanized, and no noticable change of heart since.
If the person never expressed any will to die before, there can be no basis to assume they had now changed their mind- but if they asked up till the point of of losing the ability to convey themselves, and made it undoubtedly clear that they would rather not continue living in a debilitating condition, then I think that would be a fair basis to judge.

What is it with this forum? I'm repeating the same arguments just to have others pretend not to read them.
Maybe it's the latest online debating trick by playing dumb by those that can't answer questions in the hopes the others will lose interest?

“He had not spoken to me for a week or so and then yesterday he said as I was leaving, "Ok then Good night". Small mercies but it shows that dementia patients are not living dead.”

Nohj – I can relate a similar story of a friend’s mother, who was finally placed in a hospice because of advanced Alzheimers. The friend and her husband were determined to keep Mum at home where they could care for her but the mother had finally deteriorated so badly that she needed professional care. In addition, the elderly woman had managed to get out of the house unnoticed a couple of times, shuffling down the main street, naked.

For about a year, the mother never spoke one word but somehow fell out of her bed in the hospice, breaking her hip and it was only then that an advanced cancer was detected. Who would know if a mute woman had suffered unbearable pain from the cancer? One evening when my friend was holding her hand, the mother opened her eyes and after all those months of silence uttered five words: “I wish I was dead.”

Unfortunately the hapless woman never spoke again, lingering on in silence and her death wish was not granted until some six months later.

King Hazza

You will find as you become more familiar (and I hope you do stay around) with OLO, I'm sure it applies to other webblogs, that you can agonise over every word, research every point and write with a clarity that was previously unknown to mere mortals.

And still, some numb-nuts, will either repeat what you have written or ask the question which you have already answered.

In fact I will add Celivia has also clearly outlined the set of procedures that must be followed for euthanasia in the Netherlands. None of this seems to get a grip on a single neurone let alone received and understood by some people.

The slippery slope argument gets aired to the point of erosion. For example, if we applied the same logic to driving cars, no one would be let out on the roads because of the potential for death and other trauma. Ironically, monitoring the wishes of a patient is easier than halting the actions of some freakazoid on the freeway.

Go figure.

Dear shadowminister, I have not gone into all the details due to the length such an article would require. However, as far as the right to do what one wants with ones own body is somewhat limited in our society anyway. For example, I am not allowed to inject heroin into my body even though such an act would not harm anyone else. However, to equate the interest of a woman in aborting her foetus with that of the foetus is absurd. In most cases a woman who does not want to have a child will only be inconvenienced by carrying it to birth and adopting it out. The foetus stands to lose its life. There is little comparison in the interests of the two.
If a man fathers a child, we expect him to pay for that childs upbringing for at least 18 years. This is hardly trivial. I would think this a much greater imposition than carrying a child to term and then adopting it out. The father does not have the option of killing that child either before or after birth.
Of course if the woman's life was at risk due to the pregnancy then it would be morally permissible to kill the child as it would be in self defence. These cases are rare fortunately.
As far as the ability to feel pain goes, I fail to see how this is relevant. If I kill an adult painlessly, I still deprive them of their life. Exactly what we do to a foetus when we abort it.
With regards to sperm and eggs, these will not develop into a human unless the sperm fertilises the egg and the fertilised egg is then implanted in the uterus of a woman. I simply feel there is no moral justification for killing a viable foetus that can't be applied to a newborn baby other than the right of the mother not to carry the child. And this moral justification is not, in my opinion, enough to justify extinguishing the life of another person.

“In most cases a woman who does not want to have a child will only be inconvenienced by carrying it to birth and adopting it out.”

Rys Jones – I do not live in your narrow world so let's not get too intellectual since I understand that while estimates vary, the oft cited figure is that the number of unwanted children living independently in the streets total between 100 million and 150 million worldwide and adoption is a very remote possibility. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, India has some 18 million children who live and work on urban streets all over the country.

Australia is a rich country and shamefully, already has some 866 children's homes and orphanages so how do you justify breeding even more unwanted children because you think you can unload your night of passion by registering the unintended consequences for adoption?

And while you eat three meals a day, there are around 1.5 billion poverty stricken adults and children, worldwide, who are malnourished and miserable, struggling to cope with an outraged planet.

The facts say little for your adoption delusion. And while childless couples in Australia wait years to adopt a child of 'their' choice (similar to ego-centric humans who choose only pedigree canines), thousands of children, born to delinquent or ignorant parents, are being ill-treated, sold off to the highest bidder, drugged, raped, bashed or murdered.

In addition, I would strongly encourage abortion or sterilisation for potential parents who are afflicted with Aids and genetically inheritable diseases where their progeny can expect to live a short life of pain and misery or become orphaned - yet another statistic. For what purpose? A life of pain and misery for someone else may suit your ideological agenda Rys Jones but what are the benefits for the victims, may I ask?

Hi Severin,
Exactly, this is why we MUST have legalised euthanasia in Australia. Forcing people to die a horrible death is totally unnecessary as there is a range of effective euthanatica available. No wonder that people like your dear mother find it distressing to know that they may have to suffer a painful or very scarey death.
Perhaps the title of this article should be changed: “A Culture of Torture”.
And thanks for your insight regarding Rhys’ view on the two ethical questions (abortion and euthanasia).

Nohj,
Euthanisia would just be available for those who need and want it. It is not an opt-out thing, it is opt-in, so your dad will have nothing to worry about!
If your dad would want to opt for euthanasia, he could request it, and then a medical team would assess his condition and decide whether to grant his wish to die, or to offer him alternatives such as paliative care or a new treatment.
As I said, the vast majority of people who request euthanasia are denied it in favour of other available treatments, medication, palliative care. It is reserved only for those, who have no other options and no outlook of recovery.
Still agree with Rhys? If yes, what other objections do you have to legal VOLUNTARY euthanasia?

King Hazza,
Great posts. The opposition need to reply to our questions, but then they would have to think, so they can’t be bothered. I hope you will consider to keep at it for a while- sanity is most needed her.

Rhys,
I agree with you regarding illegal drugs. Therefore I advocate legalising drugs. Drug use should be a medical issue, not a criminal one.
The reason that you cannot properly lay-out these issues is that you are trying to cram too much into one article. Discuss abortion separate from euthanasia. This is the reason I choose to discuss euthanasia only. Abortion is already legal and what you say is moot.
Euthanasia needs attention now because people are suffering because of a lack of such a law.

TBC

Loudmouth.
I agree that it is weird that the religious are not more in favour of euthanasia than they are for the reason you gave.

But I also find it weird that you continue to oppose it. Have you read my above posts and do you understand that legal, voluntary euthanasia is an opt-in choice, not an opt-out?
There is no slippery slope. You either opt-in, or you don’t. If you don’t, then you will not be euthanised under any euthanasia law.

People with advanced Alzheimer’s who have never bothered to organise euthanasia contract/papers when they were still mentally capable, automatically would disqualify even if they requested it.
These people would therefore NOT be eliminated anymore than they are now.
In fact, there would be more control and regulation, it would be more difficult to euthanise unqualified cases as things would be out in the open.

I am too, an atheist so I would agree that there is nothing after death. But why does dying itself then have to be painful or scarey? I don’t understand your logic.

You say, “The right to do it 'for' somebody ? Precisely NOT if they insensate, incapable, unaware -…”
As I said, the insensate, incapable, unaware do not qualify for euthanasia if they have not beforehand, when they were still mentally capable, arranged euthanasia with their supporting medical team. And yes of course every patient who requested euthanasia would be psychologically assessed and councelled.
It is only AFTER that process, that euthanasia will either be granted or denied.

You say that you want people to have the freedom of choice, but by being against a euthanasia law you are against giving people choice at all.

And LOL, I was waiting for Godwin’s law to come into this debate. It always does!
Euthanasia laws have nothing to do with the nazi’s. ANY euthanisia law would be about opting-in, not forced upon people.

Celivia, and Your Majesty,

Provided there is explicit, preferably written, assent by a person (and even in those cases, there are many 'ifs') then assisted suicide, or voluntary euthanasia if you prefer, could be promoted for legalisation. But change of heart ? People being 'persuaded' by relatives who stand to gain ? Many 'ifs'.

Can you at least concede that, past a certain point, there is indeed a slippery slope ? Up to that point, okay, since the person has (hopefully) clearly expressed a choice, to sort of delegate their autonomy - but past it, that's murder. Yes ? No ?

And even by your definition, this cannot extend to advanced Alzheimer's patients, or people who are too insensate to express their wishes, or who might be, in a doctor's opinion, simply depressed. Yes, there are many 'ifs'. This is by no means so open-and-shut as you seem to think, no offence.

Joe

“Abortion is already legal and what you say is moot.”

Perhaps so Celivia, however, The Bush administration’s multimillion dollar campaign against H.I.V./AIDS in Africa directed money to programmes that promoted abstinence before marriage, and to condoms only as a last resort.

87% of the counties in the United States have no abortion provider. Apparently one third of American women live in these counties, which means they have to travel outside their county to obtain an abortion. So much for legalised abortion in the United States of America – the third largest populated nation on the planet.

The 2008 Republican Party platform in the US opposed abortion stating, "At its core, abortion is a fundamental assault on the sanctity of innocent human life. Women deserve better than abortion. Every effort should be made to work with women considering abortion to enable and empower them to choose life."

Apparently that ideology also applies to the grossly deformed live births and the mangled still-born babies born in Iraq, a result of the US war machine willfully exposing innocent civilians to depleted uranium?

Celivia and Severin- thanks, and I do plan to stick around- although I would answer a question once, maybe twice and move on to anything new asked.

Loudmouth- it's not really a hard definition murder/euthanasia.
If you kill someone and they do NOT want to die, it's murder.
If you kill someone and they ASKED you to, you're assisting their suicide.
If you kill someone who asked you to humanely and painlessly, you are euthanizing them.

The person has to ASK you before you are allowed to kill them. Simple.
The slippery slope, based on existing standards in the few countries that have legalized it, is pretty gritty. Having a doctor come in and interview you to assess if you indeed wish to kill yourself now, or if you cannot express yourself, weighing in any coerced motivations (which I will talk about soon), and of course the requirement that the patient is suffering a debilitating long-term/permanent or terminal disability. Outside that it is nobody's call but the patient's.
On the note of the evil inlaws trying to get an inheritence scenario, aside from the numerous easy ways to bump an old person off and make it look like an accident, is the question of how exactly does one disqualify the motive. Would a person getting talked into saying they want to kill themselves actually want to live? What if, on the discovery of thier family betraying them, they lost the will to live a few extra days or weeks in the hospital?

And Rhys- this may come as a big shock but a fertilized egg can only turn into a person artificially anyway (either by attaching itself to a woman and living off her bloodstream, or in an incubator).
Anyway, Protogoras, Celivia, Severin have also raised some points you should try to answer before you take the easy route to try to argue arbitrary semantics of embryonic humanity as a way to ignore the others (others take note if he does anyway).

Hi Protagoras,
I like your posts/opinion on abortion. I see what you mean about abortion in the USA. I had only Australia in mind when I made my short comment. I chose to discuss only euthanasia in this thread because I find both euthanasia and abortion involved and difficult topic to discuss and I’d rather focus on one at a time only.
I would love to discuss abortion another time in another thread. I have no disagreements with what you said.

King Hazza,
I’m glad you decided to stick around and fair enough that you want to answer a question once.
Thanks for answering Loudmouth’s question so well.

I would like to add, if I may, that I see the difference between assisted suicide and euthanasia as follows:

Assisted suicide:
If a person wants to kill him/herself and needs someone’s help, and if his helper assists him, then this is called assisted suicide. The person who assists might, for example, fetch the euthanatica, or even only a glass of water, or help him sit up while the patient swallows liquid or a pill meant to kill him.

There is also a computerised system that can be used with the intravenous method in where the doctor inserts the needle attached to a syringe, and then the patient can touch the YES window on the screen at any time he wants, for the euthanaticum to be released into his blood stream.
A doctor then is said to assist with suicide rather than being the euthaniser.
The doctor did all the prep, the patient then goes through with it when he is ready.
Of course, this is only possible when patients are physically able to touch a screen, and mentally able to understand what it means to touch the YES window.

Most patients prefer their doctor to do the injecting.

Euthanasia:
If a person asks someone else to kill him/her, and that person kills the patient after his clear request, then it’s called euthanasia.
Legal euthanasia is always performed by doctors and most of the time the patient has opted for intravenous euthanatica.
Doctors who euthanise patients received special training.
Naturally, students of medicine are not taught about all the different euthanatica and how to use them, and about fatal dosage, at least not enough to enable to them to euthanise a patient as comfortable and painless as possible.
They will also need to learn how to advice patients about their options.

Loudmouth,
as King Hazza explained, there are no slippery slopes where legal euthanasia has been clearly lined out. There are clear rules, and the team of medical professionals have no reason to go around or beyond that. They wouldn’t want to risk their reputation by killing a patient illegally rather than legally. And there would be no need.
Again, there is a much higher slippery-slope, a much greater chance that a patient will be unvoluntarily killed in countries where there is no euthanasia law in place, than in a country where euthanasia is legal.

Feel free to give me a scenario in where you outline how this slippery slope is supposed to happen, if you’re still unconvinced.
I do want to understand exactly what you have missed or what I perhaps have misunderstood.

Do you understand what the proponents of euthanasia have written, Rhys Jones?
Like King Hazza, I would really like a discussion about this. What are your objections exactly, now you have read our opinions?

Loudmouth <"The right to suicide - call it what you like - yes, with counselling."

What a bizarre statement!
People already go out to commit suicide if they wish- and don't need anyone's permission or help.

If they kill themselves- it is suicide.
They already have that 'right'!
Are you suggesting they go and get counselling about trying to stop their suicidal thoughts, or counselling to help them to decide how or if to suicide?

I have cared for many people in all stages of Alzheimer Disease (which is only one of the many different forms of dementia).

The first stage is when you start really losing your short-term memory. At this stage you are diagnosed and you find out what is ahead of you. Depression kicks in then- as you can imagine.

Then you start losing the memory of how to manage your own affairs- like banking, paying bills, how to drive, how to work appliances.

Then you forget how to look after your personal hygiene, how and when to toilet yourself, how and when to eat or drink, how to use tools or utensils, how to hold conversations and how to read or write.

Then you forget the names and faces of all those people you have known over the past 40 years or so, and you start looking for your long dead siblings or parents, you forget when it is time to sleep and when it is night or day, and you forget where you live or who you live with.

Lastly, you forget how to talk or walk, how to swallow and how to regulate your urine or bowel movements. You forget how to move in bed and you curl up into a foetal position, and you live like that, maybe for many more months or years until you stop breathing.

Now, I ask all of you- which stage of this life would you rather not go through?
Voluntary Euthanasia should also be available for these people as well

Rhys Jones,

Actually it is perfectly legal to inject yourself with heroin. It is not legal to possess more than small amount, nor sell it. In fact I am at a loss to think of what is illegal.

Your comment "In most cases a woman who does not want to have a child will only be inconvenienced by carrying it to birth and adopting it out. " is a more than a little fib.

Given that less than 1% of unplanned pregnancies result in adoption due to the traumatic nature of the separation, to claim that the woman is "inconvenienced" is a deliberate porkie.

A theoretic legal comparison would be:

Suppose a stranger has a terminal disease that can only be cured by being connected to you for say 3 months. You would only be "inconvenienced" for a short while, while he stands to lose his life.

Your position would legally force you to put your life on hold for that period of time. Even if it is the moral thing to do, patently it would seriously infringe on your rights over your body.

The point at which the courts decide that they have the right over your body is the point at which all forms of atrocities become possible. You don't really need both your kidneys do you?

We are struggling for a culture of autonomy. In the culture of autonomy:

1. All human beings have the right to decide upon the manner of their death as far as they are able.

2. The lives and future of pregnant women are considered more valuable than any tissue within them regardless of the potentiality of that tissue. Women have the right to decide whether to retain that tissue or not.

Thankyou Celivia and I agree with that definition, and also with the methodology (which, I believe is standard practice in both countries).

Anyway, I think this thread has quite a bit of information for anyone to refer to now- whether or not the people with a claim against it reply is something else.

Hi Shadow minister,
I am familiar with the argument of being hooked up to someone involuntarily in order to save their life. It is the theory of Judith Jarvis Thomson. I believe it has some serious flaws. For example, I have never met anyone who was involuntarily hooked up to a famous violinist in kidney failure. Also, the imposition is far greater in her scenario. Most women can still live a rich and full life throughout their pregnancy (there are exceptions of course). It also relies on the notion that we do not have obligations to save the lives of strangers (a notion I would agree with). I would argue that the foetus is no stranger, but is in fact the closest relative it is possible to have. When we have sex without contraception, we perform the very act that creates the life which many posters here would so readily extinguish. When we create this life we create with it certain moral obligations.
Celivia, the slippery slope can be seen in the post of Suzeonline. She is advocating for the killing of people with Alzeimers. People who by definition have no ability to consent.
Protagoras - I am not referring to the entire world. Only to Australia. Abortion may be justifiable in some places in some circumstances, as may infanticide and the murder of the elderly who can no longer contribute to society. That is not the case in Australia. It is almost impossible to adopt a child in this country, yet we kill 80,000 per year. We should be valuing our children, not killing them.
And you refer to "thousands of children being drugged, raped bashed and murdered". Aside from the grotesque exaggeration, you would obviously suggest that a child with abusive parents would be better off dead. I disagree, and think that most people who have suffered abusive upbringings would disagree too.

Rhys Jones

>> the slippery slope can be seen in the post of Suzeonline. She is advocating for the killing of people with Alzeimers. <<

No, Suzeonline a RN, described the stages of dementia, whereby sufferer's lose the capacity to make choices for themselves towards the end of the appalling disease.

At no time did she advocate killing people because of their misfortune to succumb to the illness. Celivia has described in detail the steps required to ensure there is no "slippery slope".

That you would rather people died slowly, in agony and against their will is an appalling indictment of your lack of compassion over-riding the right of the individual to decide for themselves whether to choose a 'soft' death or not.

Equally appalling is your regard for women. While still in the womb a female human has more rights than when she is a living, breathing independent being - according to you.

The majority of adults understand that not all foetuses can and should be brought to term for as many reasons are there are people. You are entitled to your opinion. You do not have to have an abortion if you don't want one. Nor do you have the right to force women into bearing children against their will.

Such is your Culture of Control.

Dear Rhys Jones,
your position becomes less tenable or defensible the more you go on, relying on sophistry rather than reason.
I can only denounce your position in the strongest possible terms as myopic, elitist and viciously nationalistic.
I suggest you get a religion as soon as possible, it's the only way I can see that you can rationalise this rubbish.
In the meantime, you're giving atheists a bad name!

There are two jurisdictions here: One of the state, the other of the self. I would argue that both euthanasia and the prohibition of abortion entail a reduction in the autonomy of the self, as in each case, a decision (suicide or abortion) is currently made independently of the state. Therefore, advocates of euthanasia and pro-lifers need to justify why the jurisdiction of the state should override one's autonomy.

I like my autonomy.

Fester

I am not sure I understand your question.

I believe in autonomy and the choice of euthanasia. As you should be aware I abhor the thought of people suffering for months in a slow lingering death.

At present the state (law) does not permit euthanasia.

No Rhys Jones, as Severin pointed out to you, I did not advocate involuntarily euthanasing people with Alzheimers at all.

I merely pointed out why people diagnosed with Alzheimer Disease should not be left out of being allowed to ask for voluntary euthanasia, just the same as anyone else with a terminal disease.

If people were able to write out their wishes , while still in good health mentally and physically, about when they would like to have voluntary euthanasia in the future, then that should not be the business of anyone else except that person.

All others, like yourself, who do not believe in voluntary euthanasia, would be left alone to their own fate, as is their wish.

Yes, palliative care is good these days, and works well with most people. Yet, I would not like to be the one where nothing helps the pain, diarrhea, vomiting or nausea no matter what we give them.
Unfortunately I have witnessed these extremely distressful deaths many, many times.

I guess you could write out a living will stating that you are to be kept alive for as long as is medically possible, no matter what your pain levels are, or the quality of life you are experiencing.

How does that sound? Fair enough?
Just leave the rest of us alone to decide our own way out.

”And you refer to "thousands of children being drugged, raped bashed and murdered". Aside from the grotesque exaggeration…..It is almost impossible to adopt a child in this country, yet we kill 80,000 per year."

Rys Jones – Currently there are 99,900 homeless young people living on the streets just in Australia, with those aged between 12-18 years, the prominent group. Factors that push young people to live on the street include poverty, domestic violence and sexual abuse - predominantly unfit parents. And many of the abused children go on to commit the same atrocities.

The 'grotesque exaggerations' are all yours Rys Jones!

The difficulty in adopting a child is purely administrative and not the availability of babies as you would have us believe. The number of abandoned babies far outweighs the number of applicants seeking to adopt, therefore your claims are hyperbolic nonsense.

Just what would you propose to do with the 80,000? "babies" you estimate are ‘killed’ each year in Australia through terminations when there were only 440 adoptions in 2008?

The AIHW government publication state that:

"In 1971-72 there were 9,798 adoptions in Australia. In 2007–08, there were 440 adoptions of children in Australia, a 23% decrease from the previous year, and the lowest number of adoptions recorded since 1969–70.”

Perhaps it is ideologues like you who must share the responsiblity for the abandoned baby (deceased) known as Angel Baby who was left at a bus shelter in Shepparton in July 2008?

Or perhaps the abandoned baby Adam (live) found on a doorstep in April?

These hapless new mothers who dump their babies may have encountered ideologues like you who have put the fear of the devil in them if they contemplate terminating an unwanted pregnancy. Ego-centric bullies like you who believe they have control over women’s bodies en masse?

Why not share some responsibility for a young girl’s dilemma and write an article on the dire necessity for the five minute, hit and run deadbeat male to share responsibility and wear a bloody condom? You don’t need a prescription for condoms do you? What’s your problem?

Severin

There was a time when suicide was a crime: Would you agree that it is better that suicide is no longer a crime? I dont think that the involvement of the state with the individual's choice to die was such a raging success then, and I dont see why it should be any more successful now.

Fester

I am aware that suicide was once regarded as a crime and that some religions regard it as a sin.

Do you believe euthanasia should still be a criminal offence?

Hi Suzeonline,
I value your contributions to this discussion as a medical professional.
Perhaps Rhys should spend some time nursing these unfortunate patients to be able to fully understand why we need legal euthanasia in Australia.
Thanks also for outlining the stages of dementia.
My mother’s doctors (the ones involved in preparing her euthanasia papers) have recorded that my mother wants to be euthanised when she is clearly at the stage in which she’d “forget how to look after your personal hygiene, how and when to toilet yourself, how and when to eat or drink, how to use tools or utensils, how to hold conversations and how to read or write.”

Rhys, your slippery slope is imaginary, because people, like my mother, would make these decisions while still mentally able.

Squeers,
“… you're giving atheists a bad name!”
I am hoping that Rhys is not a REAL atheist : )
The way he places Da Human Zygote at the centre of the universe shows lack of understanding of the basics of evolution.

King Hazza,
Thanks, I also wanted to point out, in case people get all slippery-slopery, that assisted suicide would still be illegal under euthanasia laws, but trained doctors would be exempted. To make it clear to Rhys et al, it’s not like I could fetch my next-door neighbour some Nembutal to get rid of him and his *#%&@ng barking dog.

Protagoras,
Great post. You asked Rhys “Just what would you propose to do with the 80,000? "babies" you estimate are ‘killed’ each year in Australia” . I asked the same question at the beginning of this discussion, and I hope you have more luck at obtaining an answer than I did.

Fester,
Perhaps there's just an error in one of your sentences that confused me as it did Severin.
Did you mean to say in your (Saturday, 26 June 2010 2:59:43 PM) post, that “opponents” (instead of advocates) of euthanasia and pro-lifers need to justify why the jurisdiction of the state should override one’s autonomy?
Then what you said would make more sense.

Sigh, face it guys, I think Rhys bit off more than he can chew putting this thread to us, and has been trying to avoid most questions and try to spin or segue away from others. we've given him more than enough food for thought- let's wait for some answers.
So far, nothing- merely saying that Shadow's hypothetical person with the terminal kidney is a "stranger" and is unlikely to exist- and avoided the analogy, speaks for itself (Strangely enough, statistics show that the likelyhood of babies prevented from abortion do not reach the kind of life opportunities that we're supposedly snuffing out- which ironically validates an argument FOR abortion).
Now Protogoras has confirmed his "grotesque exaggeration" was in fact, completely true, I think we should wait for Rhys to answer Protogoras' question.

Celivia

If euthanasia legislation could solve the problems that you and others elucidate, then I agree that it would be a good thing. My problem is accepting that the legislation would work efficiently. I'd imagine that it would be a bit like organ donation: Not applicable to most, good for a few, and rejected by the remainder. Of course, organ donation and euthanasia could be made efficient processes were they compulsory under specific parameters, but this would be a violation of individual autonomy.

As I said, I like my autonomy.

Dear Fester,

You wrote: "Of course, organ donation and euthanasia could be made efficient processes were they compulsory under specific parameters, but this would be a violation of individual autonomy."

Since there has been only voluntary euthanasia and organ donation proposed you have set up a strawman.

JL Deland wrote: "I strongly support other people's right not to be involved in euthanasia or abortion and think that legislation trying to coerce people into these things is disgusting"

Dear JL Deland,

Since no legislation has been proposed in any democratic country to coerce people into abortion or euthanasia you have also set up a strawman.

No legislation has been proposed in any democratic country to coerce people into abortion or euthanasia, but much legislation has been proposed and enacted which prevents access to abortion and voluntary euthanasia.

Let's deal with facts and not strawmen.

Fester

>> As I said, I like my autonomy. <<

As do we all, hence euthanasia is, as Celivia has patiently explained, an opt-in system. You can also include in your will a provision, just to be absolutely sure, that you receive only palliative care in your final days. However, I and many others choose to act on OUR autonomy by requesting an to end unendurable pain and anguish in our final days, should palliative care no longer provide a quality of life we can cope with. No one is suggesting that you be euthanised against your will.

It occurs to me too that there's a case for euthanasia when the subject expresses him/herself of unendurable angst. This need not be mere melancholic wallowing---for which Robert Burton ("The Anatomy of Melancholy"; fascinating reading) prescribes "activity"; the Devil makes work for idle minds!---since bipolar disorder and such are considered involuntary "diseases" rather than morbid dispositions. So perhaps if the subject could depress a couple of psychiatric professionals sufficiently (providing said professionals weren't incurably enamoured with {some} life, like Rhys Jones, which would be an unfair test), with his pathological state of mind, s/he should be able to drop the ultimate trip too?

"Autonomy" is an interesting concept...?

No David, I'm not dealing with strawman because down in Victoria you have the situation where medical staff have to be involved in abortions against their conscience by law. That naturally raises the issue of how we would handle euthanasia. Do we do the same with euthanasia to make sure people can access it? Pretending that it's not a issue won't make it go away.

A parliament has said it's okay in the first case, so a Parliament could say it's okay in the second. Of course I wish it wasn't so, because it brings the issue into some disrepute and gives the anti-euthanasia people I think some ammunition. It's a elephant in the room, and as elephants eat straw - no strawman here anymore!

Susieonline of course has to deal with the other side of the coin. Where family won't allow a family member to go and insists on continuing treatment long after it being kind. Probably if the staff proceeded according to the patients stated wishes, then there would be all sorts of trouble and accusations, even legal or police coming their way from the family.

tbc

Maybe we should deal with it by separating out the people who make such decisions from the everyday staff. I sort of like the idea of a team of specialists who skilled at easing people out of this world anyway, and that could include family counsellors.

People could lodge a statement of their intent with something like the Public Trustee and in such a case their wishes could be enforced over the families objections. They could also be made aware of the existence such teams through the hospital or community organisations and request to see them. Nobody wants to cause the family pain, but you could have a bunch of born again christians imposing their will on Dad who is a fiesty scientist with strong views.

I don't think that we can include mental illness as a reason for euthanasia, though many would argue for it. I've had friends with bi-polar who have attempted and in one case succeeded in suicide. It's a bloody condition. But it might be the disease talking when someone requests death, when in six months they may be more okay with the world.

We don't see death on a regular basis like in olden times. It's santised to some extent. But there is the term 'blessed release' and on the battle field before modern medicine, a terminally injured soldiers mates might give him 'mercy'.

I agree, King Hazza, I’ll wait for some answers from Rhys while continueing talking to others.
I’m also awaiting a reply from Loudmouth.

Fester,
I don’t understand your reasoning.
The efficiency of euthanasia legislation lies not in numbers, as is the case with organ donation. The efficiency of euthanasia would depend on whether it is available to those who want to request it; not on those who reject it! It merely needs to be available to those who need it to be effective.

It’s like that with most services, isn't it? We still need to have hospitals available for those who need it, even if the majority of people won’t need the service.
The efficiency of hospitals doesn’t rely on the number of people admitted to hospital, but on the availability and benefits it offers for people who need it, no matter how many admissions there are.

Legal euthanasia is merely a service, which people can choose to take or leave.

Do you still think, now that several posters reasoned with you, that one can have sufficient autonomy without the ability to make choices about one’s situation

Dear JL Deland,

You wrote: "I want people who want such things to have access to them, with full government support and services from willing people of a similar mindset."

In other words if the provider doesn't want to give the service the provider doesn't have to. I agree. However, unless the provider is willing to provide the full range of medical services available then I don't think the provider of medical services should retain his or her medical license.

The above is a slippery slope. If a medical person has the right to refuse to perform an abortion or euthanasia even though the patient wants it then the the medical person has the right to refuse to perform a vaccination or any other medical treatment.

Hi JLDeland and Davidf,
Medical staff would have, as far as I know, the right to be not involved with euthanasia and still retain a medical license.

But as the demand for doctors who are willing to perform euthanasia will grow, anti-euthanasia doctors will eventually be ‘naturally selected’ out of the system. Hospitals will have a need for doctors, who are members of the euthanasia organisation, and patients will seek out these GP's, as well.

We will probably see a shift, and these doctors will only be able to find employment in areas where there is least demand for euthanasia, such as areas with a majority of young families.

Within a greying Australia, there will be less and less opportunities for anti-euthanasia doctors to find employment.

Even if, like in the Netherlands, only 1% of palliative patients opt for euthanasia, the general population will want it to be available, just in case they might want to request it later.

Once euthanasia legislation is in place, naturally euthanasia will become part of the curriculum at all medical schools, and newly trained doctors will have to deal with this during their training. Then it becomes established and the zeitgeist will move on and eventually there will only be very few doctors who would still oppose euthanasia.

All this does not mean that euthanasia will be thought of lightly and that it would be easy to have a euthanasia request granted. It remains a difficult decision and a team of professionals will always need to be involved to make sure that patients have tried a wide range of alternative treatments.

Also, many people who were granted euthanasia find peace because the worry and weight is off their shoulders, and, as in my aunt’s case, die a natural death as they become more relaxed and able to keep postponing it, knowing that at any time they can tell their doctor to end their pain. It is amazing how much more relaxing, peaceful and better able to cope with pain patients become once they know that they have this option.

Hi Suzeonline. I'm sure you not an evil person who simply wants to kill everyone with Alzeimers. However, suppose someone has declared they wish to be killed when they become demented, and no longer remember doing this. Would you still feel it is okay to kill them? Would you tell them you are giving them a lethal injection or just do it without their knowledge? I think it is a frightening situation that you propose when we kill a person who no longer has their faculties regardless of what they may have said in the past. This is particularly the case with our aging population which is going to place enormous pressure on our ability to care for people in the fairly near future.

Protagoras - you seem to be suggesting that the life of a homeless person is not worth living. As far as abandoned babies go, are you suggesting they would be better off dead than going to a loving home? It is not the system that prevents adoptions, it is the lack of babies being offered for adoption.
We should start by making contraception far more readily available than it is to attempt to get the rate of unwanted pregnancies down. Then develop a culture that values our children. We should be celebrating when a woman gets pregnant, not contemplate killing the baby. I do not think I "have control over womens bodies". Clearly if I did there would not be 80,000 abortions a year in Australia. I do not believe that control over your body should extend to killing an unborn child unless in self defence (pregnancy threatens the womans life). If women don't want to have babies then they should use contraception to avoid pregnancy. If a man doesn't wish to have babies and spend many years financially supporting them then he should wear a condom. This is not rocket science. If despite all precautions a woman gets pregnant and doesn't want the baby, then she should adopt it out to people who would dearly love to have one.
Our birth rate at around 1.7 children per woman is less than what is required to replace our population. I think that in a country with as much wealth as Australia we can afford to care for our children here, rather than kill them before birth to save them the trauma of not having a perfect life.

Dear Rhys Jones,

You wrote: Our birth rate at around 1.7 children per woman is less than what is required to replace our population.

That is also true for other countries. If our population decreases what is wrong with that? Why do we need to replace our population? Why can't it go back to what it was previously?

Rhys Jones,

That no one has been hooked up to someone yet is irrelevant. It was simply a theoretical scenario for comparison. Even if the hook up was only for one hour, it would be legally impossible to enforce. Even if my son required a blood donation to save his life (another theoretical scenario), I could not legally be forced to do so irrespective of how odious my refusal was.

Secondly giving your child away is not just an inconvenience, as you would imply, which is why almost no body does. There is also the inconvenience of not completing your education, not being able to have much of a career, or missing out on your childhood from a silly mistake.

The anti choice, god botherers who feel they have the right to ruin other's lives are amongst the most odious, despicable people. (marginally better than the KKK)

The issue is about choice. If you feel contraception or abortion is wrong, no one is forcing you to do it. However, it is also incumbent on you to back off from where you opinions are neither wanted, nor relevant.

Rhys Jones <"...I'm sure you not an evil person who simply wants to kill everyone with Alzeimers."

No, because not EVERYONE with Alzheimers would have requested that they be euthanased Rhys Jones!

I would have no hesitation assisting those poor patients who did previously request not to live on through to the end of this distressing disease.

As we are discussing only VOLUNTARY euthanasia, then you can choose not to have any assistance in this way, but don't presume to know what is best for the rest of us.

Rhys Jones:
<We should start by making contraception far more readily available than it is to attempt to get the rate of unwanted pregnancies down>
Dear Rhys Jones, how can you be so callous about the relationship between sperm and egg; surely their union is sacred (in your secular sense) and must be preserved? Would you deny the "life to come ... and all that it entails" by "killing" an imminent (immanent?) conception?

JL Deland:
<I don't think that we can include mental illness as a reason for euthanasia, though many would argue for it.>

There is a bias behind all our thinking that should be acknowledged. But don't mind me; I'm just that hissing noise in the background :-)

Why not? Depression can be just as malignant, in its own peculiar way. The government sanctions the sale and abuse of depressant drugs like alcohol, which destroy countless lives by stealth in a way that is the obverse of euthanasia--sanctioned self-destruction. I'm interested in the undefined moral impediments that inhibits all our "so-called" reasoning (lol). What a shame we're not so diffident when it comes to other sentient beings, or Gaia herself.

Davidf:
<Why do we need to replace our population? Why can't it go back to what it was previously?>
"economics" of course, dear davidf; capitalism is our "grand narrative" and it has to be fed.

Dear Squeers,

Rhys Jones neglected to mention that our population is increasing faster than in many other countries.

Country Growth Rate in %
Australia 2.1
Canada 0.8
China 0.5
Indonesia 1.1
Italy -
PNG 2.1
USA 1.0

Population increase results both from fertility and immigration. Rhys Jones ignored that. Many things are blamed on capitalism which capitalism is not responsible for. The socialist countries when Marxism was more popular gave medals to overbearing women.

Ok, quick debunk:

It's not so much deciding that one is better off dead alone than deciding that letting parents abort their own unborn children is better than the combined wrongdoing of forcing two people to ruin their lives because of a contraceptive malfunction (yes, some of these people DID use contraception), bring a child into the world as an unwanted mistake, most likely- statistically- to live in a negative family that is unable to raise it properly, orphanage, or on the street (with a statistically high probability of turning to crime), than the reverse, based solely on a VERY remote possibility that it might turn out all happy.
It would be like banning euthanasia because a terminally ill person might kill themselves a few days before a miracle cure is discovered and that person can make a complete recovery.

The adoptive parents also implies that abortion rights must take second presedence to supply-and-demand.

"Why don't they use contraception, why don't they adopt?" is pure naievity (deliberate or otherwise). These people DO ANYWAY- unless you have a solution to actually STOP it (which ironically would make banning abortion unnecessary as nobody would ever need one), you are again throwing up silly excuses to the fact that the problem EXISTS.

We already explained the protocols of Euthanasia- you again ignored (big surprise).

"If despite all precautions a woman gets pregnant and doesn't want the baby, then she should adopt it out to people who would dearly love to have one.”

“People who would dearly love one,” Rys Jones? Only in your state of delusion because there are very few who want one! As Celivia pointed out and I reiterated, there are more abandoned babies than there are people needing to adopt. The fewer the abortions, the more abandoned babies potentially being raised in orphanages or languishing in refugee camps. Get it? And must we continue this vacuous argument?

In 2008, 73% of adoptions in Australia were ‘intercountry’ adoptions (children from overseas countries, which is generally arranged by the relevant state government agency) and there remains many thousands more on the list who cannot be placed. Perhaps you’re a racist and believe that babies born in Australia are ‘superior?’

Furthermore, I do not require a lesson in birth control having raised children of both sexes where by the age of sixteen, my son always carried condoms. There was no need for him to embarrassingly ask a girl whether she was practising birth control or if she was afflicted with a sexually transmissible disease, since he used a condom anyway. The only external influence for his decision, was a dire threat from his parent, that if he didn’t, he would have to pay child maintenance for the rest of his life and if he defaulted, he would no longer have a mother.

As of December 2009, deadbeat dads in Australia, deserting their children, had run up a $1 billion debt with child support agencies. Of course these deadbeats can go armed with grog, fags, drugs and sexually transmissible diseases while they’re on the prowl but a packet of condoms for $2 bucks? Not likely!

And in consideration of your naiveté, the brainwashing of the masses by religious fanatics, and a burgeoning global population of 6.7 billion humans, I offer you two words of advice, Rys Jones: "Grow up!"

Dear davidf,
thanks for the reply and, btw, I'm not a committed Marxist, far from it.
But to your point about the levelling off of population growth in developed countries. The fact is, capitalism is a giant pyramid scheme that relies on growth, which can't be derived from innovation in commodities alone. The most reliable fuel is population growth. Levelling off or decline of population in developed countries is not evidence for some equilibrium stage. The engine of growth has simply moved offshore. The stabilising, in population if nothing else, can only be temporary as the balance of power shifts. Unless we can lead, big-time, in terms of technological development, we can't keep up with the sheer manpower of production of wealth (power) oversees. Ultimately, fundamentally, it comes down to growth, and the most reliable fuel is demand for base commodities, ie population growth. This was the tragic flaw in Rudd's ideological delusion--it's all in his essay on the GFC, a sublimation of his political entrapment --which led to his capitulation to realist politics: stock-standard economic stimulous and population growth.
It will be fascinating to see what Gillard will propose instead of population growth to keep Australia a first world country; digging ever bigger bloody great holes in the ground isn't enough. She's about winning elections of course, and what better platform to gull us with than a "long-term" vision of sustainable development!
But apologies for being way off topic.

Hi Celivia,

Sorry, it's been a busy day. You asked for a scenario of a situation some way down the slippery slope ? No problem: any situation in which a person has made no inference that they want to be put down, and they have reached a condition in life where they are insensate, incontinent and unable to recognise anybody.

It's not anybody else's call but theirs, and when they can't make it, that's it, baby.

But (of course !) this sort of situation has never crossed anybody's mind.

Joe

Celivia

Both organ donation and euthanasia involve a decision being made by a person to apply to himself at a time when he can no longer make decisions. The directive of the person is carried out according to legal guidelines by a medical team and with the approval of the person's family. So it isn't an autonomous decision. As it happens I am an organ donor (not for a while, I hope), and I am sure you are aware of the difficulty in getting Australians to donate their organs. I think that euthanasia would gain even less acceptance than organ donation and would attract a band of hostile opponents as has happened with legalised abortion. And for all that effort and extra bureaucracy required, I suspect that it would be more expensive to euthanase people than to keep them alive.

I could be wrong of course, but I see legalised euthanasia creating more problems than it solves.

Fester you have clearly missed the point entirely- AGAIN.

We have already explained in simple terms that the way the whole thing ACTUALLY works is that a person must ASK to be euthanized before any attempt is made.
The doctor is not allowed to just stroll in one day wheeling in some death machine into the patient's room with an offer he can't refuse, and eagerly assumes he heard a "yes" somewhere in the indecipherable ramblings of a person who really doesn't want to die and eagerly sticks the device into them and turns it on.

And I don't quite get where the "price" bit comes into play, as none of the doctors and hospital staff are paying to keep the person alive- and the person in the bed sure doesn't care about the costs.
But then again, "choice" doesn't compute it seems.

You're in as much a fantasy land as Rhys. Or you're trolling.

Speaking of which, I just realized something shocking. This thread has come to the point where we have simply RUN OUT of possible silly hypothesis for BOTH subjects and repeated a few at least 6 times between all detractors not reading past answers.
It's come to the point where there actually is little left to say except to find inventive ways to summarize our existing statements and make witty remarks.

I agree there is "little left to say" Excellent expositions of all the aspects. And the general would appear to be along the lines of 80% in favour of changing the laws, it is supposed to be in the general population. But nothing in any post about how we get the law changed so it reflects these views. Any suggestions?

I am proposing to write to each candidate standing in my electorate for the next election asking for confirmation that,if elected, they will vote "for" any bill legalizing euthanasia. I am also asking whether they vote in parliament on any particular bill at the instructions of their party whips, or the views of their constituents (if they know it) or on their personal oopinion. This letter and their replies will be forwarded to the local media.

If this idea receives general acceptance, it might have some effect - what does everyone think

It might work Dicky and is definitely worth a try.
Personally, I see only two other options
1- vote only for a party/independent member that clearly has a pro-euthanasia policy- and instruct everyone around the country to do the same
2- the only other way other politicians would ever touch the issue would be for their opinion polls to go down and needing a cause to reverse them, promise to change the law on euthanasia- of course, everyone would have to do a good job of pretending they totally WOULD vote for them- the problem is, Liberal and LAbor rely too much on the mouth-frothing neocon vote to dare defy them- and both make it clear that the religious person's views are more important than anyone else's by the sheer time they put into proving their "Christian" credentials and focusing so much on that subcommunity (ignoring the majority of this community is SECULAR and thus ignored).

Loudmouth & Fester. (heheh sounds like a disease instead of monikers)

Two Words

LIVING WILL

"A living will is a legal document that a person uses to make known his or her wishes regarding life prolonging medical treatments. It can also be referred to as an advance directive, health care directive, or a physician's directive. A living will should not be confused with a living trust, which is a mechanism for holding and distributing a person's assets to avoid probate. It is important to have a living will as it informs your health care providers and your family about your desires for medical treatment in the event you are not able to speak for yourself."

http://www.alllaw.com/articles/wills_and_trusts/article7.asp

Dickybird

Election time is the very best time to campaign for euthanasia. In addition I will write to Get-up - and my local pollies.

Cheers

Severin,

Then in the absence of a living will, I hope that we never see the phrases 'advanced Alzheimer's' and 'euthanasia' in the same sentence ? Or ever again on the same OLO thread ?

With a euthanasia bill imminent in all states if the WA one passes, I'm starting to think I will need to sign an affidavit to set out clearly and definitely that I do NOT want to be put down - by all means, turn off the machines and give me the morphine if I can't take the pain, but otherwise I want to be as much of a PITA (i.e. an inconvenient nuisance) to relatives and palliative staff as possible.

Joe Lane

Dear Squeers,

You're right, and you're wrong. Capitalism does depend on growth, and the engine of growth has moved off shore. That's only part of the problem. As long as we have industrialised society under our present ethos whether the corporations are socialised and owned by the state or privately owned makes no difference at all. It is an illusion that it makes a difference. The Marxist countries were also digging bloody big holes in the ground and exploiting the third world. The fault is the present organisation of industrialised societies, and it does not matter whether they are capitalist or not. Socialist societies also operate on the basis of growth and accumulation of capital.

Capitalism and socialism pollute. The environmental destruction in the late Soviet Union was horrible. The Caspian Sea is drying up. The Siberian tiger is an endangered species. They created a dust bowl similar to the one in the US in the thirties.

Whether production is for use or for profit doesn't matter. The machine grinds away causing environmental destruction, alienation and conflict.

The problem is not capitalism. It is corporatism. The machine grinds away. The juggernaut destroys. Industrial society is centred on production. Nature, human feeling and all other considerations are secondary to production. Whoever owns the means of production or how it is controlled are not the prime consideration. Capitalism and socialism are two forms of the juggernaut. We may have a democratic or an authoritarian socialism. It doesn't matter. The democratic form is less harmful, but the machine grinds on pulverising humanity. We can't go back to Arcadia either. Maybe we should start a new thread and consider the topic.

The DO SO Loudmouth- sheesh.
It's almost like you're asking permission, or you need some instruction to conduct yourself.

I personally will arrange in such circumstances to be euthanized before I reach that point of alzheimers, and will be sure that the doctors WILL euthanize me if I fail to die before then if those are the circumstances.
It's called SAYING what you want and planning.
Not just "oh the doctors will try to guess"- give them a plan, or will, or declaration.

It's as silly as saying we should ban wills because naughty relatives will try to coerce us into diverting it to them, and if we don't express our will it would be put to someone else to decide how it is diverted.

This sounds more like fear of the unknown to me.

"I think that euthanasia would gain even less acceptance than organ donation and would attract a band of hostile opponents as has happened with legalised abortion."

Fester there will always be hostile opponents to any bill introduced.

Western Australians voted in 2009 on Daylight Savings (yet again!) and for the fourth time, rejected it. Noisy and hostile campaigners for DLS were so vociferous that it appeared the Yes vote would win. It did not, but it cost the taxpayer a considerable amount of money. "No" four times by the majority, means "No."

The religious right often claim to represent the silent majority on abortion, however surveys to date on abortion, suggest that around 80 per cent of Australians support a woman’s right to choose.

A poll conducted by A C Nielson in 2005 saw a mere 17% against abortion and one conducted by Roy Morgan in 2006 saw 22% against abortion. These figures reflect society’s views on abortion. They do not reflect the imaginery or manufactured 'silent majority' the anti-abortionists claim.

Dear Davidf,
thanks for the reply.
I have no interest in defending socialist/communist regime's of the past and present, beyond perhaps acknowledging the detrimental effects of the one sided economic tension between East and West/ Left and Right. The regimes themselves are indefensible.

I have to acknowledge that the question as to whether capitalism drives population is indeed a vexed one.

I'm frantically busy for the next day or two, but unless you beat me to it, I'll start a thread on the topic before the end of the week.

Hazza,

Why not both - a Living Will specifying when, AND an affidavit when not, to remove some of those grey areas, as a precaution ? And of course, both in writing. Just making that clear - oral reports are a bit dodgy when a life (and perhaps property) is involved. In the real world, who knows what evil lurks ?

Joe

Squeers, I hadn't noticed you hissing! Alright I'll soften my stance somewhat in relation to people with mental illness seeking euthanasia and not make that a total block in absolutely all cases. I would though have some very large reservations. Probably though if euthanasia was legalised and allowed for in mental health conditions, the same sort of things that would worry me, would also be looked at by the people assessing a patients suitability for euthanasia.

Most of my reservations come from having had friends with bi-polar. I've had friends who have been immobilised with the pain of depression. It is a very serious condition. While someone is in a truly depressed state though I don't think they are in a condition to agree to euthanasia painful though it is. One of my friends in that state truly believed that each and every one of the starving babies in Africa was her fault. After some very hard years involving hospital admissions, her condition improved to a very great degree and she has had a full and largely happy life, though of course she still has bi-polar and she is probably not as resilient as most people. If she had applied during those three years and been accepted, that life would not have been led.

Another friend in his 'up' stage took on beliefs that had no relation with how the world actually works, and would become very agitated if people didn't follow his reasoning. He probably scared some people. If he was making that decision up was not the time. When he was down though, it was worse. In the end the poor bloke did suicide. I think though, that if he had someone with him that day to laugh some with, it wouldn't have happened. He went to a place with a bad history, he would have thought on it by himself, and on the way home a opportunity presented itself. I think it was spur of the moment.

With people with conditons like cancer and degenerative conditions, the outcome at a certain point is pretty clear. People aren't at all likely to get better. The outcome for mental health patients can be more unpredictable. While not curable, some people can manage their conditions and do will with support. I'm maybe wrongly, not knowing where we are in the medical treatment of these conditions wondering if we may get better at treating them too. If I get motor neurone, I'll probably have about six months I believe. If my daughter gets bi-polar, she would probably have another sixty years for medical advances to be made, unless her condition drives her to self medicate or harm for them to work on treatment. I'd like her to hang on as long as possible in hope of improvement.

There were big variations in the mood of my friends with bipolar from day to day, week to week and even year to year. I'd want a very long assessment process, if euthanasia was made an option for people with this condition to take that into account.

That's a very good idea Loudmouth- I think that's precisely what needs to be done, conveyed in both verbal and written record and open to change at any time.

I think that should stand more strongly in an event one cannot say directly what their intents are at the immediate moment.

Dear JL Deland,
thanks for your thoughts.
One under God gave me the epithet Ssssqueers one time and I rather like the sibilance (and the inference); and the posts I make are not always taken up 'directly', so I sometimes feel like background noise..
I wasn't entirely serious about euthanasia for the depressed; I'm not entirely convinced that most manic depressive cases are pathological. I would prescribe a long vigorous walk for these patients, to remind them of how basic life is--and maybe medication if that didn't work. Curiously, I believe bipolar disorder is almost unheard of in third-world countries? According to Peter Ackroyd, Charles Dickens walked on average at about four and a half mph, and that was off the beaten track and without his nikes on (I confess I doubt the sainted Ackroyd; few biographers research their subject like he does, but I've put it to the test and Dickens must have been sprightly indeed! Dickens was a prolific walker, indeed he was prolific at every thing he did (except longevity and mediocrity); for Dickens, ten 'miles' was a stroll and twenty miles was a mere streych of the legs. 'Twas virtually his quotidian routine; he terrified his guests when he suggested a post-prandial perambulation.
I defy anyone not to cheer up on a long walk, and if they still feel like suicide after fifteen or twenty miles, I reckon give em the pill, they've earned it. The depressive malady of our times is due mainly to being too sedentary.
I'm interested in the way we attach such gravity to the notion of voluntary death. A tacit value system, or at least equivocation, lurks behind every philosophical dilemma we care to trivialise, and this in a time when universalism has supposedly been routed by 'pragmatism', lol. Whenever I feel down in the dumps, I walk and think, or I sing along to the ending of The Life of Brian. :-)

"We have already explained in simple terms that the way the whole thing ACTUALLY works is that a person must ASK to be euthanized before any attempt is made."

That is assisted suicide, KH, not euthanasia. As severin points out with the Living Will, euthanasia is about making a decision to apply to yourself at a point in the future when you cannot make a decision.

Like the pro-lifers, euthanasia advocates are making an extrapolation, and this I think is a problem. The pro-lifers look at a newly formed zygote, extrapolate to the human being and say, "How can you destroy this wonderful person?". Similarly with euthanasia, you extrapolate to a decayed shell perhaps decades hence and say, "It would be best for me to be humanely killed were I like this.". In each case, how closely will the future match our speculation? Is our present life best directed by decisions we make now, or should it be subjugated to decisions we made in the past or may make in the future?

For believers in evolution like me, I can extrapolate back to a progenitor of human life. But if I stepped on a little feathered or furry creature, I wouldn't worry about whether I had destroyed the progenitor of a species that supersedes human beings, though I would regret the life I had destroyed.

Dear Squeers,

One summer day in Syracuse, NY the sky was blue' and the sun was shining. I got out and walked. I felt so good that I walked at least twenty miles at what I thought was a rapid pace. Next I got out of bed and couldn't stand up. It was a march fracture. The pounding had broken a bone in my foot, and it took a while to heal. I had been in the infantry during the war but never walked as far as I did that day. In fact I never walked so far in one day before or since.

Loudmouth <" I'm starting to think I will need to sign an affidavit to set out clearly and definitely that I do NOT want to be put down - by all means, turn off the machines and give me the morphine if I can't take the pain...".

At last! Yes, that is what we all want Loudmouth- the right to CHOOSE if we want to be euthanased or not- and under what circumstances.
The Living Will is a document that can be used by all people- either for or against euthanasia. 'Voluntary' is the key word here!

All I hope, for your sake Loudmouth, is that you will allowed to change your mind should you realise that some deaths are just not bearable if we can get out of it.

Fester, you still seem to fall way outside the debate again to the point it's almost as if you're only here for trolling.
First a definition that is much poorer than previous ones made in this very thread, then a quick gloss of an issue without any reference to the more substantial points made on the same issue just LAST PAGE, and then the remaining 60% was you trying to look clever by making an irrelevant philosophical statement.

Try reading something and finding particular flaws instead of chip in some totally irrelevant point long bypassed by the rest, next time.
This would be almost excusable for someone who only jumped in for the first time late- you have no such excuse.

Wow I’ve had quite a few posts to catch up on since I last posted.
Thanks for sticking here, King Hazza. But I agree that it is fruitless if people don’t read the posts with care.

Loudmouth, Euthanasia requests will automatically be rejected if there is no euthanasia ‘contract’ available, which the patient should have organised when s/he was still mentally well.
Euthanasia patients are, anywhere in the world, as far as I know, only euthanised if they have their euthanasia papers in place and if they also suffer from a painful and terminal illness besides Alzheimers, or when Alzheimers would be the cause of their constant pain.
It is all about rights and freedom of choice.
It would be unsatisfactory if a euthanasia law would allow only those terminally ill people in pain to be euthanised on their request if they don’t suffer from a form of dementia also, and would prevent people with the same illnesses to be euthanised just because they ALSO, in addition to their painful, terminal illness, happen to suffer from dementia/Alzheimers.

Fester, you need to understand that euthanasia is an autonomous decision because family approval is not necessary. The person’s euthanasia arrangements, documented and recorded by a team of medical professionals, would override any wishes or demands of family members.

Dickybird is a fresh breath in this discussion to bring up the point of HOW we can get the law changed. Excellent suggestions and I will proceed to write to each candidate.

From a progressive perspective it makes good sense to kill 80,000 babies a year.
This provides the opportunity to increase Australia's immigration intake by 80,000 per year.
Furthermore, these immigrants are already diverse and don't need to be indoctrinated into
diversity in our schools like the 80,000 babies would if their mothers didn't choose to kill them.
Accelerated multiculturalism can only be good for Australia.

Agree Celivia!

Proxy- and here comes the mention of immigration and multiculturalism- the WORST argument against abortion yet (the race to branch-stack against immigrant numbers).

That's right, King Hazza.

Proxy it looks so uneducated if you talk about the killing of babies.
Why don't you and Rhys not use the proper terms? When talking about abortion, talk about the embryo or foetus.
Not about "unborn children" or babies!
Oh I know why you prefer to talk about babies: for emotive reasons.

I'm sure that someone has edified you about this already- which means you are constantly lying if you keep repeating the same old emotive, incorrect terminology

Face it: there are no children or babies killed when abortions are performed.
Killing babies would be called infanticide, would it not?

And the term "unborn children", is such an obvious and emotive anti-choice term to use!

I'm sure that this has been explained to you before in your lifetime, but I'm going to hammer it in till you, anti-choicers, get it: do you call a ball of yarn an unknitted jumper? An acorn an ungrown oak? A grass seed an ungrown blade of grass?
And, one of my own: do you call an adult or elderly person an undead body?

You and Rhys should start to at least debate abortion by using the correct terminology and by being honest.

Oops, I wasn't going to debate abortion! But the euthanasia debate is a bit stale now that the opponents have no arguments left, and I couldn't stand these lies from the anti-abortion brigade any longer!

Dear Celivia you said:

//Proxy it looks so uneducated if you talk about the killing of babies.//

and your trivializing of such a mini holocaust is &^%$#@ SCARY!

Dear AGIR,

Abortion is neither a mini-holocaust or any kind of Holocaust. You are doing what you accuse others of doing. You are trivialising the Holocaust. Your use of emotive language and inappropriate comparisons does not add to understanding.

A foetus or embryo is not a baby.

There should be no abortions. Men and women should use proper contraceptive measures if they are going to have sex and do not want the woman to get pregnant. It is reasonable to campaign for proper education in the use of contraceptives. I think that should be part of sex education in the schools.

Since people do not always take precautions or sometimes precautions fail abortion is sometimes necessary. It is not for you with your primitive superstition to decide whether it is necessary. It can be done by a coathanger or unqualified abortionist. It is better that it be done by a competent doctor.

Do you understand?

It is more than convenient that unborn children can be classified as non-human.
This facilitates the practice of partial birth abortion.
By partially birthing the non-human, its skull can be accessed for puncture and cranial vacuum.
Ensuring the process is completed before birth helps to reassure us that the subject is a non-human,
and not a human as it demonstrably would be if it were allowed to be born and then had its brains sucked out.
I believe this practice has been banned by those fundamentalist reactionaries in the USA,
who can't quite grasp the nuances of human versus non-human.
Progressives can celebrate that there has been no such ban in Australia,
and can therefore rest easy that non-humans are being terminated in humane style.

Dear David.. see Proxies post.. do you understand ?

Celivia and David- again, I think we should wait out for the detractors to read the thread and the arguments for abortion- we have better things to do than to agonizingly guide the slow kids through the lesson that finished when the lunch break is on and the rest of the kids are outside.

Especially Celivia, considering that they couldn't answer a simple question of the "unknitted jumper"- or for that matter, an unfertilized egg or sperm, an adult etc, I wouldn't put the effort into trying to convey your points as thoroughly as you normally do.

They have more than enough to try to rebuke if they can.
What you're asking such people to do is think broadly on the full implications of the issue- when its clear that if they WERE capable of this, they would have cited something more specific already than a few lazy cliches.

The important point is we've padded out 24 pages so far of counter information, for anyone more sensible to see (and the lack of even a specific rebuke capturing the whole issue in sight).

Once again the abortion issue is split between reason and religion.

Those with religious convictions are not likely to be convinced by mere facts.

Those with reason, merely get frustrated replying to scripted emotional rubbish from the anti choice nut jobs.

VERY well said Shadow I cannot think of a better way to put it.

I second that, King Hazza.

I just wish that, in debates about abortion and euthanasia, people would agree to a definition and then use the correct terminologies.

I'm halfway through reading that new article "Defining Euthanasia" and think it looks interesting enough.

I will abort myself from this thread unless the anti-choicers try to have a more honest debate.

There have been some great points made here, and I'm certainly going to keep the link to this discussion to refer to when I need it.

If I have to say one positive thing about Rhys' view before I leave this thread is that at least he is, unlike the usual religious anti-choice brigade, backing better sex education at schools and having a wide range of contraception available.

Thank you, all!

Reason versus religion is a false dichotomy.
I'm not religious and didn't realise you needed to be to value life.
The real problem is that when people anchor themselves to a concept,
in this case "choice",
no matter how nebulous that concept is,
they will tie themselves up in irrational knots to justify their position.
They lose the capacity to reason, as they seek to shore up their stance.
This enables them to justify partial birth abortion and even infanticide.
If you doubt this, you only have to look at President Obama's
multiple blocks on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act
when he was an Illinois Senator.
Putting a living survivor of abortion in the waste disposal unit to die becomes the "right thing to do" to supporters of "choice" because not to do so would violate that higher principle.
Tell us again, what is reasonable?

Celivia, agree, thankyou for sticking around!

Proxy- read the thread, it's already answered.
I'm not going to waste my time repeating what others are just too lazy to look for.

Dear AGIR,

Sure I understand. Proxy has set up a strawman and argued against it. Nobody has claimed that an embryo or foetus is non-human. Sperm is human. Human hair cells are human. However, sperm and hair cells are not individuals, and a foetus is neither a baby nor a child.

Proxy started his post "It is more than convenient that unborn children can be classified as non-human."

That is the strawman. A child is not a child until it is born and passed the baby stage. Yes, I fully understand the dishonest tactic of arguing with what nobody has said. Nobody claimed that an embryo or foetus was non-human. One could also call a child a born foetus. When a baby is born the foetus no longer exists.

I understand dishonesty and verbal trickery quite well. Possibly you have become so accustomed to lying language that you didn't even notice its use.

Do you see it now?

“This enables them to justify partial birth abortion and even infanticide. If you doubt this, you only have to look at President Obama's multiple blocks on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act when he was an Illinois Senator.”

Proxy - There appears to be no limit to the propaganda you perpetrate. Obama does not advocate infanticide!

As Obama and other opponents of the Born Alive Bill noted: The criminal code already and unequivocally mandates against the killing of infants or any other human for that matter.

Protagorus,
Get educated:
http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2008/01/top-10-reasons.html
or it's you that looks like a proper gander.

Proxy – Your pin-up girl, Stanek’s a bully and a nutter who advocates violence. Stanek ran for the Republican nomination for the Illinois House of Representatives in 2002, on a pro-life platform, and was defeated - a rare moment of commonsense for the GOP who also believe they were 'born to rule!'

Time for your reality check Proxy dear:

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010/02/17/just-ignore-facts-maam-jill-stanek-write-ultra-right-outlets

So a person who advocates leaving living aborted babies to die doesn't advocate violence,
and a person who objects to leaving living aborted babies to die does advocate violence.
I'm glad you sorted that one out for us Protagorus.

Proxy, by refusing to address those rebukes, nor the posts we've made before of why we justify it and think it is a necessity, despite being given many chances by us to do so, I feel there is little point to continue talking to you until you specifically do.

You can try to get the gag factor by talking about 'babies' (read, pea-sized bean-shaped things) getting their 'brains sucked out'- and the best you deserve is a proposition to kill them more humanely.

In other words, your trashy debating tricks don't work because they miss the point. (read it).

Protagoras,
If you are able to separate your contempt for the religious trappings
of this woman’s mind (I am not religious yet I manage to do so) maybe
you can see that she has exposed a great wrong.
“Another nurse from Christ Hospital also testified with me in
Washington. Allison described walking into the Soiled Utility Room on
two separate occasions to find live aborted babies left naked on a
scale and the metal counter. I testified about a staff worker who
accidentally threw a live aborted baby in the garbage. The baby had
been left on the counter of the Soiled Utility Room wrapped in a
disposable towel. When my coworker realized what she had done, she
started going through the trash to find the baby, and the baby fell
out of the towel and onto the floor.
Other hospitals have now admitted that they commit live birth
abortion. It apparently is not a rare form of abortion. But Christ
Hospital was the first hospital in the United States to be publicly
exposed for committing this form of abortion.”
http://www.priestsforlife.org/testimony/jillstanektestimony.htm
As a result of Jill Stanek’s testimony, the Born-Alive Infants
Protection Act was passed by unanimous consent of the US Senate on
August 5, 2002.
The entire US Senate agreed on this matter.
Barack Obama blocked the Illinois equivalent.
What nuances of the word infanticide are you having trouble with Protagoras?

‘So a person who advocates leaving living aborted babies to die doesn't advocate violence,’

Try to think for yourself Proxy rather than parroting the unsubstantiated allegations of a religious fundie.

And indeed, Mr Bush signed the Born Alive Act – a duplication of the criminal code. And it is with some regret that the hypocritical Bush fails to acknowledge the myriad of still births and grossly deformed live babies born to innocent civilians in Iraq who were exposed to Bush’s crimes against humanity – ie, the use of depleted uranium.

Similarly Stanek claims that gays are an abomination and ‘that your children will be indoctrinated by homosexual teachers.’ Oops….is Stanek recommending that ‘abominable’ gays be put down at birth?

She also believes that the murder of Dr George Tiller by anti-abortionist, Scott Roeder, could be appropriate owing to ‘his honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force.’

Thankfully for an enlightened and democratic society, you and the unhinged Stanek, remain a minority.

Protragorus

accuracy is always helpful.

Leviticus 18

21 " 'Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.

22 " 'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

23 " 'Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.

Notice that the issue is the BEHAVIOR... not the person. "That"

-Child sacrifice
-Homosexual acts
-Bestiality

Interesting...they are all grouped together...hmmmm...

Anyone doing such things has serious 'mind wiring' problems, even if they were born that way... it's not the wiring that's the sin..it's acting on it.

It would be patently rediculous, not to mention repulsively irrational, to suggest that a man claiming to have been 'born' with a sexual preference for pre-pubescent children should be allowed to act on that 'condition'...in spite of anything Peter Singer might offer.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2001/03/08/2591/

Protagoras,
"Try to think for yourself Proxy rather than parroting the
unsubstantiated allegations of a religious fundie."
Those "unsubstantiated allegations" were of sufficient veracity to
qualify as evidentiary testimony to the US Senate which then acted on
those "unsubstantiated allegations" by unanimously implementing the
Born-Alive Infants Protection Act.
The very fact that her allegations were substantiated but that there
was no lawful mechanism to stop this practice is what led to the new
law being implemented.
In other words, the matter was investigated and found to be true but
no laws were being broken. Hence the necessity for the new laws which
received 100% bipartisan support in the US Senate. This is hardly
likely if the new law was mere window dressing and a duplication of
existing laws, as you are suggesting.

This thread is going into ridiculously off-topic loony-religious grounds, that have not provided a single actual good argument against what has been expressed.
I think I'm done here.

“In other words, the matter was investigated and found to be true but no laws were being broken.”

Baloney Proxy – You are speaking of federal laws which had no legislation for abortion prior to the Born Alive one so how could a non-existent law be broken? In fact the US’ abortion laws are regulated by the states where legislation already existed so the federal law you bray about remains impotent. These obfuscations are merely a shifty endeavour to hang pro-abortionists, particularly when you belong to the camp which salivates over the death penalty.

Yes AGIR – and I’ve asked you previously: “Why don’t you practise what you preach?” And we all know a little about your God of convenience and of the satanic rituals performed by ignoramuses in the dark ages.

Your bible (Exodus 11:5) also tells us that your God murdered every first born of Pharaoh to the first born of the slave girls as well as the first born of the animals. That’ll larn ‘em eh?

Then there’s the ‘virgin’ birth and we’ve heard countless times that god made MAN in HIS own image. Eve was an afterthought – pure and simple!

You've been taken for a sucker, old chap. Ask for your money back.