As I read it the author is suggesting that if society was more caring the desire for euthanasia would be lessened so we should leave those desiring assistance to end their lives to suffer in the lack of care that is their lot and will most likely remain their lot.

If we all drove more carefully there would be less accidents so let's ban ambulances now.

There are those who no matter how caring those around them are will wish to end their lives. There are also those who don't have the caring relationship's around them which might help and no legislation or likely social change will bring those relationships to them.

Meanwhile we as place legal roadblocks in the way of people wanting advice, support and assistance with what may well be the most traumatic and difficult decision they will ever make people die for lack of food and clean water in other parts of the world.

I've been trying to think of another human activity which is legal for the person doing it but which for which those willing to provide technical advice or practical assistance to the person undertaking the activity carries with it the risks of prosecution for our most serious criminal acts.

We leave people either unable to end a life which may have become unendurable or resorting to means which are either uncertain or likely to traumatize those most likely to find them after the event.

The author refers to "12-year-olds applying for euthanasia" I don't like the idea of any child ending their life, perhaps a legal route to that decision with appropriate support along the way would be a better option than a length of rope on a nearby tree with no-one close knowing enough to work at other options.

R0bert

Erik, I don't care what philosophical reasons you my have for objecting to euthanasia, but how dare you impose your attitudes on me and make it impossible by law for me to make a decision to end my life when I wish due to any incurable suffering I might undergo. Who are you to make me suffer in order to prolong a life that I no longer want ?

I must agree with Aime. But further, in the journey out of this life, we must be well informed about how our establishment manages palliative care. For instance, are we aware that the UK has just licensed an aerosol under tongue spray of marijuana for MS sufferers on the National Health?

This raises the issue of what may or may not be prescribed in Australia approaching a chosen or palliative care death. In Oz the practitioner may prescribe morphine. Not bad, but not the best, it has negative side effects such as a jaundice colour of the skin and a bilious gut. Whilst in the UK the practitioner may prescribe heroin. No side effects other than elimination of pain.

So, UK, marijuana and heroin. Do we imagine that Australia will license these items for prescription to the terminally ill?

The myth based wanderers and alleged carers would have us believe the palliative journey is a good one. It cannot be. As a nation we permit not the best medication to be prescribed, our constipation in the 1950s remains. Ask a representative sample of nurses, those charged with the ethic of care, not medical practitioners (do no harm) who have a completely different ethic, and the bulk of the nurses will tell you about the all too frequent indignity of a painful death.

Death is what we are talking about, death from a terminal condition, not from other disabilities, and we owe those on this path, the best, yet we do not permit it.