Hi TTM,

Ah ! sweet quality of life, at last I've found thee,
Ah ! At last I know the reason for it all;
All the longing, seeking, striving, waiting, yearning,
The idle hopes for life, the pointless tears that fall !
For 'tis death, and death alone the world is seeking,
And it's death, and death alone, I've waited for;
And my heart has heard the answer to your calling,
For it's death that rules for evermore !

Yeah, right.

My wife died from liver cancer two years ago. At the time, she was acting Head of the SA Indigenous Education Consultative Group, and heavily involved in other education bodies, Catholic Education (even though she wasn't a Catholic but an atheist) and the wonderful Federation of University Women (AFUW) of which she was the Indigenous rep in SA. She had many, many ideas about what needed to be done in the next twenty and thirty years in Indigenous education, from pre-school right through to tertiary level (actually, come to think of it, she had worked at both those levels). Death cut her short, a tragedy for Indigenous education, particularly in SA.

Don't treat death so lightly. You can't do much when you are dead, and there is so much to be done here and now, while you're alive.

I would expect a Right-winger to say 'no, b*gger it, don't change anything, let it all go, die now', and a believer to say something similar: 'don't worry, there's another life, this one doesn't matter, let it go'.

But no. There is so much to be done to bring about justice and equality. There is no other life but this, no other chance to get anything done but now.

Don't treat this issue as if it's just another cute intellectual exercise. It's dead serious.

Joe

Loudmouth, I am sorry to hear about your wife.
I admire the fact that you hold life to be so precious after what you must have gone through with your wife.

I don't think it is death that is so attractive to people that they want to see voluntary euthanasia legalised.

Almost all the terminally ill clients I see say they are willing to fight it to the end, but only if they have well controlled symptoms.
Many have seen relatives who have had unrelieved pain, nausea, incontinence and vomiting during terminal illnesses, and are afraid of going down that path as well.

We have excellent palliative care these days, and we are improving these methods and medications frequently.
However, there remains those few clients where nothing we have works for them.
I envisage that we would only need voluntary euthanasia for these few people, should they request it.

That would be the value of this legislation. Those who don't want it can say so, and still get all the care and attention we can give them.

Those who do want euthanasia at a set time in the path of their illness can then request it legally.
It's as simple as that.

Loudmouth.



No-one's holding your personal views for you to be a "nuisance and a burden to my children as long as possible" :) that's why you can put on your last will and testament( while still in your sound mind, what ever that is ) that you wish to cost the health system as much drain as possible because of the fact that you would like to go out kicking and screaming.

Well, that's fine.

"My wife died from liver cancer two years ago.
If you don't mind me asking, what was her last wishes( not yours ) her thoughts on the matter?

"Death cut her short, a tragedy for Indigenous education, particularly in SA.
Yes the lost of anyone is sad, as you know.

And as you know, I give two sides of the fence so to speak, and in my opinion, the senator of the Democrats has my frame of mind to a tee.

And with the baby boomers coming through, I hope your children don't need bed at your local hospital since the aging population is higher than the infrastructure allows, by the lack of vision by the Howard government and in pockets of the capitalists that puts money a higher importance than a sustainable Australian head count.

The above sounds cold, but the facts are the facts, and all in, there are lots of points to the bigger picture, and that's just one of many concerns humans in this century, which by the sounds of it, you wont have long to go yourself;) and we will not see your disillusions on the matters when your demise comes round, since you have made it clear what you think.

A little selfish don't you think?( humans in general ) And I will just throw this one in for good measure as well.

Making the aged work longer is just as insane, since know one will move up the ranks in the promotional relems,and the bigger picture doesn't stop there.. and the quick-sands of time will be up around our necks sooner than you think.

TTM

TTM,

You haven't got a clue, have you ? It's all just a word-game to you. Not a bl00dy clue.

Euthanasia was discussed on Q&A last night with an idea for a conscience vote.

My first thought was that was a good start but why are we letting the politician's use their conscience vote - why not put the vote to the people themselves?

There is no way our MPs can represent us on a conscience vote unless they canvass their electorates and go with the majority vote. This won't happen of course.

Put it to a referendum.

Hear, hear Pelican! Bring the referendum on.

If euthanasia is legalised then probably a small number of people will want to access it. But it should be available to those who do want to access it. It will also be reassuring to a large number of people that if things go really pear-shaped in the health department they can go if they are ready and not rely on either going early or going overseas, or involving someone else in something that could seriously rebound on them,to help them. It's nobody's business but the people's who want to access it. Those people who object to euthanasia simply don't have to access the service. Nobody is thinking about having a open slather without there being strict safeguards.

Well done the Greens for putting it back on the agenda in Parliament. It's a ridiculous situation where commercials are pulled, yet the grownups (cough) in Parliament are allowed to discuss and talk about it but the broader public shouldn't.