Leigh <" You don't seem to know anything about the administration of morphine other than by injection."

There is no use trying to denigrate me Leigh. I have been an RN for 30 years. I know more about medication administration than you will ever know. I have also been present at literally hundreds of deaths, both in hospital and in the community.

Many people in the last stages of dying often can't swallow, so they need either intravenous, intramuscular, or subcutaneous injections to get their pain relief. That's a fact.

"If you had any imagination, you would that (sic)what a well-known doctor and advocate of dignified death publicly admits he does to help people certainly goes on in private."

I don't need imagination to know about Dr. Nitschke, Leigh, and what is the big secret with his name, or what he advocates?
He is well known in Australia.

People don't need special drugs to kill themselves Leigh, they can do it just fine using more conventional methods. However, when they need help to die when they physically can't do it themselves, then they have to involve others in this act.
At present it is illegal, so yes, we do need it changed via parliament.

Nitschke, and others like him may well be out there doing their own thing, but the rest of us don't want to risk prosecution for murder.

What a wonderful and necessary article!

Rexw,
Don’t you think that people with depression or a mental illness that causes them to have suicidal thoughts should be assessed and receive psychiatric help?

Keep in mind also, that life insurance companies normally do not pay out for deaths caused by suicide. What effect can that have on families or partners?
Where euthanasia and assisted suicide is legal, insurance companies should be obligated to pay out after the patient underwent euthanasia if the medical team, that looked after the patient granted the patient permission to be euthanised or receive assisted suicide.

Leigh,
If this is indeed a fact, that doctors sometimes help people shorten their lives on request, they would do that at the risk of being prosecuted for it.
That’s one reason why euthanasia should be legalised. If it happens anyway ‘behind the scenes’, then why not bring it all out in the open and legalise it to protect these doctors who have compassion for their suffering patients.
It would only take one family member of the illegally euthanised patient to complain to some kind of board for the doctor to be at significant risk of prosecution.

King Hazza,
I would agree if you are saying that people with depression still should have the right to receive assisted suicide or euthanasia if their depression is secondary to a painful or disabling illness without any outlook on improvement.

Fester,
From what I understand, King Hazza was not suggesting that every Tom, Dick and Harry should have easy access to Nembutal just because they have an off day or feel a bit too emo.

Agree Celivia- doctors should either offer a free counselor for suicidal people asking to be administered the drug, or permission to take it if they suffer any extremely painful condition, debilitating condition or handicap with no present prospects of recovery, is exactly what I'm trying to say.

Also agree with you and suzeonline that the point of the bureaucrats is so the doctors aren't required to stick their necks out and break the law if they are to help.

King Hazza

If you had a bag of potatoes and told everyone that it was a bag of vegetables, what would they think? Yet here we have a voluntary euthanasia bill before the Western Australian Parliament that should more specifically be described as an assisted suicide bill. So why use such a broad term that would include prospective killing, which the person had arranged when of sound mind, or mercy killings without consent, when the bill specifies consenting people of sound mind? Are you all that surprised that a few might think you are hiding the odd carrot or onion in that bag?

Similarly with suicidal people, why shouldn't they also have access to the means for a dignified death rather than be condemned to find their own means of dispatch? And they sometimes dispatch themselves quite gruesomely ,as many a construction site worker would attest to, and usually in very sad and lonely circumstances. Would it not be more humane to offer them Nembutal as well?

Sigh Fester, describe what part you don't get.
Voluntary euthanasia is more specific than 'assisted suicide' because it simultaneously legalizes that PLUS the right to access effective suicide drugs- I support both- but moreso the latter to support the first.

What guidelines do you not actually like about a 'death will' if incapacitated- or any supposedly ambiguous circumstances?

Personally I would probably respect the suicider's wish to die, however most others disagree with me- as it would depend on evaluations of how best a suicidal person could be helped, circumstances etc.
However, disability with little chance of recovery is an airtight criteria to put to those who ask for the drug.
Either which way, it would be put to a professional to weigh up considerations and administer him/herself.

Before I can begin to comment, I need to be advised of the participant's religious affiliation/attachment, if any, please?