What really gripes most people on this topic of legal voluntary euthanasia is the disingenuous tactics used by those in opposition to it. The article in question is a fine example.

Believing that a god gives life and only a god can take life is fine, but not everyone accepts that. Distorting the political process on this premise using fallacious argument is an absolute disgrace. It is more of a disgrace that religious organisations promoting that they have the ‘moral’ truth involve themselves with lying.

It boils down to a simple choice. If you do not wish to avail yourself of legal voluntary euthanasia, then don’t.

These persistent attempts of frightening the population into compliance with narrow fundamentalist views are working with some politicians and members of the public, but they are becoming lesser and lesser in numbers.

David

*when the time comes to let compassion overtake the old-fashioned religious superstitions of the past*

Well Suze, sadly I think you will find that you are up against the
enormous lobbying powers of a massively wealthy Catholic Church
here. Every time in the past when I have investigated these lobby
groups, be it about family planning, abortion or euthanasia, the
Catholic Church turns up.

Why can't they just come clean and tell us that its part of their
dogma and they want to enforce it on the rest of us.

Of course palliative care is also a major income stream for the
Catholic Church, the way that I understand it.

But of course our Catholic politicians would want their promised
ticket to heaven, so I'd be surprised if they go against their
church unless the public expresses massive outrage.

We can only hope and keep protesting. With enough people power,
even Australian Catholic politicians will have to take notice.

Yabby

...You appear to be falling into the trap of “conspiracy theories”. (Vis-a-vis. AJ)

A 'death squad' that gives you the choice. What a sketch the Monty Python team could have made out of that!

As usual the Dutch are ahead of the curve and what we need is balanced consideration of euthanasia in the modern context. Hyperbolic comparisons with Nazi Germany are not helpful. Before the modern era it'd have been common practice to smother a loved one with a pillow, either to end suffering or an unaffordable drain on the families' means--there'd also have been instances of inexcusable murder, but one likes to think compassion or desperate straights were the primary motives.
Modern technology has not only extended life beyond salubrious usefulness, it's fostered the delusion that life must be clung to for as long as possible, even when all quality of life and all "hope" are gone. What is this "hope" I emphasise that holds on "when there is nothing in you/Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"?
Kipling intended the sentiment for the business of life, and not holding on tenaciously against the comfort of death when there's nothing left to hope for.
Of course we have to be on the watch for inevitable abuses, but because mistakes or crimes are possible, it doesn't alter the fact that a compassionate and thrifty death is far better than an agonising and costly one, especially when such is the wish of the subject. And I don't see anything objectionable about death on wheels; just as legitimate as home birthing.
Indeed, after a certain age I think it's illegitimate to seek to preserve life. If someone is fortunate enough to be long-lived and physically and mentally strong enough to sustain it, good for them, but advanced old age should be the favour of fortune and not the grotesquery of science, especially when so many young people die needlessly and could be saved for a fraction of the cost.
The emphasis is all wrong, it should be on the quality of life and not longevity. We're a decadent and depressive race, saddled with the incongruous compensation of a laboriously eked-out dotage.
I vote for voluntary euthanasia and palliative care for those on whom there is no justification for expensive or futile medical procedures.

Yes Yabby, you are correct that the Catholic Church is heavily into providing Palliative Care services and hospices in the community, to their credit.

However, even if Voluntary Euthanasia does become legal, I still don't see it being so popular that it would take away any significant 'business' from Palliative Care organisations.

Agreeing to actually lay there and watch someone give you that last injection is actually quite confronting, unless you are in extreme pain or discomfort with your disease.

Luckily, these days, most palliative patient's symptoms are able to be alleviated for the most part. That's why I don't understand the extreme anti-euthanasia stance by mainly religious objectors.

As many are aware, the medical world already quietly does its own form of 'euthanasia', albeit at a much later time than most dying patients request it.

These doctors are compassionate people who skirt around the edges of the law to do something for desperate people that the spineless Government won't legalise, due to a selfish minority of objectors who wouldn't know 'Christian compassion' if it jumped up and bit them on the bottom...