Excellent article!
The same question that was asked by JP popped into my head while I read the article.
Paralysed people should have as much right to die peacefully as anyone else.

No-one should be forced to die a slow, painful and fearful death.

I also would like to know what Dr Nitschke's view is on euthanasia for the mentally ill, or people with some type of dementia, like Alzheimers.
On the one hand, these people should be protected so that others cannot make the decision for them; on the other they should not be denied euthanasia if they are suffering a slow and painful death.

I know that in some countries where euthanasia is legal, it is required that one arranges euthanasia when still of sound mind- have the discussions with a medical team and make sure that the required paperwork is in order so that IF one becomes terminally ill and suffers pain, the medical staff know exactly at what stage during their dementia the patient has chosen to die.

There needs to be a method so that patients can have complete authority over the end of their life; it should be prevented that family members or medical staff make decisions for them about the point of death.

Celivia, "Paralysed people should have as much right to die peacefully as anyone else.
No-one should be forced to die a slow, painful and fearful death."

Agreed.

There is also the ethical dilemma of supporting life where the person is paralysed and unable to move at all, being totally dependent on others for even the most basic bodily functions. Where the quality of life is so diminished, maintaining life is death denial practised by well-meaning people who do not themselves have to suffer as their victim does.

Anyone who has suffered the temporary condition of sleep paralysis can vouch for how frightening permanent, total paralysis must be. I am reminded of the description of a medical provider who had to attend to such a permanent paralysis victim whose tears of pain and exasperation with his wretched circumstance were the patient's only form of communication. We would never wish such an entrapment, a solitary hopeless confinement, on the most vicious, hardened criminal and worse, it is one where there is no sight of a blessed release.

Dr. Nitschke,

Thanks for your statement.

Being born implies having to die and dying is essential for the continuity of life.

Yet many, very many of us, though knowing that this invariable condition is common to all living organisms refuse to accept its reality and necessity when it comes to our body that we believe as the highest in a presumed scale of animal life and the only one with a soul.

Does this reluctance to accept death have implications on the continuity of the biosphere and, with it, on the continuity of human life?

To make sense of this question we may have to open our eyes to another reality, namely the trade of human organs, whereby man, by overpowering another, secures an extended lease of life from the other whose duration of it can be shortened or impaired.

Can’t we see in this body-parts trade the failure of the three-four millennial Hippocratic Oath and of the equally ancient Aristotelian Constitution that we flag as tenets of our civilization?

A civilization that keeps in its arsenals enough atomic weapons to wipe out all life if the steady diminishing of the species of living organisms does not accomplish this feast before!

I have returned from Germany where for obvious reasons euthanasia has very mixed connotations attached to it. If you think it has been a vexed issue here, think about how difficult it is to achieve an peaceful death for the terminally ill other there.

Only in June of this year an elderly woman, who had been in a coma since 2002, had her feeding tube removed by her daughter and finally given approval by the Federal Justice department. The nurses replaced the tube and the woman went on to live for another 2 weeks before having a fatal heart attack. Imagine, 8 years of watching your mum in a coma, then having her suffer a heart attack when she could've have an easier death.

I think this brings Germany into line with Australia where people do not have to be kept alive if the only way they can is by life support. I can be corrected if I have this wrong.

We need, as Celivia says a form of living will drawn up when we are sound of mind as to how we wish to be treated. The daughter has had to endure too much and has to continue living knowing how her mother was treated and how she died.

I would very much prefer to specify a quality of survival below which I do not want to be kept alive. I would expect and demand no resuscitation, nor valiant efforts to extend my life and certainly withdrawal of all of the artificial means to support my existence, excepting for those humane measures including drugs that would reduce suffering in the process.

Death is a process that should wherever there can be some control over it, that should be as dignified as possible and preferably in the home with familiar people and objects around us.

It is devastating to contemplate a lingering death in an intensive care unit, or as a prisoner in a paralysed body following stroke for example. It is an even more exquisite torture if my brain is active but my body is so compromised that I cannot enjoy any reasonable, acceptable, standard of survival, of existence.

I have read the stories of those rare exceptions who expressed the need to live for another month in the ITU, or as a mass that required the strenuous efforts of others to keep alive for years. That is not for me, so take my default position as my final wish.

I fully agree, Cornflower.
Live and let die!
Sleep paralysis is a good example! This happens to me several times a year. I used to find it totally frightening to have an active mind but a paralysed body when I was younger. It doesn't scare me anymore now that I know it is only temporarily. A few minutes I can cope with, but it would be horrifying to be in a constant state of paralysis.

Patients who have a desire to die need to be assessed to make sure they do not suffer primarily from depression. In that case, their depression needs to be treated.
If their depression is secondary to their suffering, then they have a case for requesting euthanasia.

I know several people who have had euthanasia, and quite a few who have arranged a euthanasia 'will', including my mother.
To set up such a will, naturally while still of sound mind, is a very involved and thorough but necessary process.

I like most of Nitschke's ideas but I think it should be up to every individual doctor to decide, together with the patient, which method is most suitable to end a patient's life.
A lethal injection, administered by a trained doctor should be available on the euthanasia "smogasboard", otherwise the paralysed, the blind or the mentally diseased won't have access to this service.
And that is simply not good enough.

JR,
these cases are cruel, aren't they?
I think that 'passive' euthanasia, which involves taking away life support and feeding tubes is terribly cruel and unnecessary. This is unlike passive euthanasia, definitely not a kind and dignified death.
Active euthanasia should be available for people who today have only the choice (if they have any at all) between remaining attached to artificial life support OR have this support taken away and slowly starve or choke to death.
While heart attack saved this woman from an even longer death bed, her (non) treatment should not have to happen in a humane 21st century.