Here's a suggestion: why not start off legislating for suicide - self-inflicted, self-administered, involving no-one else, and subject to counselling ? Suppose we try this for a few years and see if and where there are legal difficulties and loopholes ?

i.e. to legalise situations where person A (and only person A) kills person A (and only person A) ?

Or is this too simple ?

Thanks, Formersnag, but I wouldn't want to join any group which was stupid enough to admit people like me. In any case, not joining would save the hassle of expulsion.

Joe

Firstly, I wish I could understand the posts by one under god.

Secondly, Gillard is simply keeping neutral on a very very touchy subject because she is holding onto power by a very very thin thread. Nothing more to it than that.

Thirdly, Everybody dies, it's just life. Surely people can have the right to choose how they die when they are already dying.

We are usually relieved to hear that someone who dies in an accident went instantly, without pain. Why would we then turn around and hope for the opposite for someone who is terminally ill?

Fortunately I have witnessed the passing of relatively few people, but I have never seen the 'good' death that some write about. I would berate and sack a farm worker who permitted any animal, farmed or feral to suffer the same.

I do not believe that the shackles of religious conviction or perverse stupidity are the stumbling blocks for the majority of people who are hesitant in supporting euthanasia at this stage. Religious edicts did nothing to prevent the sexual revolution and the use of the female contraceptive pill.

The aged are far and beyond the most numerous target of the euthanasia legislation, yet they are overwhelmingly opposed to it. It is reasonable to presume their opposition springs from distrust of the government because that is what they have said. That their distrust is well-based in fact is so obvious as to not require proof, but if any is needed, the long-standing discrimination by government against seniors in its own employment is an example. Worse is the hypocrisy that permits government to encourage the employment of seniors - who may only be in their early fifties - while conveniently disregarding the discrimination against seniors in its own employ to achieve economies, restructuring, affirmative action and so on.

Seniors must also believe that they exist in an environment where the 'old' are increasingly perceived as unproductive baggage to be carried by a society that even questions the worth of parenthood and children, where skilled labour can be easily imported, also acting a pressure valve for reckless fertility elsewhere.

In short, many citizens might want euthanasia to be available to them but see risks for themselves and their loved ones in a culture that is obviously does not value the aged and sees them as a burden and where government has well-earned reputation of cynicism, hypocrisy, obfuscation and inaction in policy affecting the aged.

DavidG, your strawman is pathetic.

Force *everyone* 'to die a terrible death'? Where did I ever say that? Does *everyone* die a terrible death, without euthanasia? But then, if every death is terrible, isn't euthanasia therefore terrible?

'If the rules for legal euthanasia are set up properly'. Ha ha, a very big if.

'if euthanasia is legalized, people everywhere will go about killing everyone in sight'. No, I never said that at all. However, from what I have personally witnessed (which is, of course, anecdotal only I'll concede), and from what evidence has shown in the past (witness, for instance, the unusual spike in deaths *after* death duties were abolished in the 70s), *some* people *will* place undue pressure on 'burdensome' relatives to get rid of themselves.

Maybe you find that an acceptable collateral damage, I don't.

Yes, sometimes terminally ill people die awful deaths, and yes, it may be better *sometimes* to spare people prolonged and hopeless suffering.

And yet, and yet ...

Clownfish, you weren't here for the other Euthanasia thread were you?
Your arguments and presumptions clearly show someone who has not been keeping up with further enhancements in the debate, because most of your questions had been painstakingly addressed many, many times previously..

So far for you, it seems that it's more worthwhile to force some people who would willingly choose to end their lives humanely due to being rendered in a physically intolerable state (to them) to instead be forced to linger in a bed, than to risk the spook scenario of naughty inlaws encouraging their sick relos into offing themselves slightly earlier- as opposed to, you know, discretely killing them and claiming it was an accident- which, in such a state, anyone would immediately believe possible.
Am I right?

to/quote..the trash/can-man<<..We are usually..relieved/to-hear>>>think/why...that is true

read the death notices
passed peacefully in their sleep...is euthanism for youth-in asia..

to wit they died dopped to the eyeballs..
thus many/arnt even aware...their spirit..has passed over

thus dwell for ages in the next astral realm...
completly aware they been tricked/decieved..the normal course of dying

every death has its pains..[we have learned palitive...care..for pain managment..has its chronic-pain..they simply cant cure

think of how they kill/people with the 3 needles?..in usa
one to immobelise their atomouse system..so they dont thrash arround/another for the pain..for those wanting to thrash and/in pain...then another injection to stop the heart

but there is no clean death

peacefull does not translate into easy

<<that someone/who dies..in an accident went instantly,without pain.>>is a complete deciet...

they dont know...
imagine the pain..you felt..
being desribed as passing peacefully...how would you feel?

<<Why would/we..then turn around..and hope-for..the opposite for someone..who is terminally ill?>>...yes your totally right....lol

if only dying..was as simple..as you seem to think
do you still believe in father x-mass?
the easter bunny..the tooth-fairy

you think they dreamed the death..by needle..
death sentance up..from nothing?

or from standard/operating procedure?
for those doing their..duty..in the dark-of night?

oh yes maam..he passed-away[to where?].. peacfully..
in his drug induced sleep

is now completly unaware...he is even dead

[completly ignorant..his spirit.. might*-be tied to his..dead body
for years till it..{the body}..disolves away]..in some cases

recently..in israel...hospitals went on strike
the death toll miraculously fell
go figure why

yes its a bad job watching people die
even worse..is trying to be helping them...into suffering..beyond human asistance

issues we have
are more easilly resolved here
in this realm..than in the next

DEAD is NOT DEAD
however much they/might decieve..you
to think/its all over..or done the easy-way..

easy for who?

de-nial..is more than a river in egypt
docters/nurses are guessing..ok educated guessing..
and in the main with good intentions..

but your job is either pain managmnent..or curing
not euthinisation...either all life is sacred..or its not