Paul if you don't want to "kill" yourself that is your choice but there are thousands of us who WILL make that choice when the time comes, if there was the possibility of living "forever" you might have a point but we DON'T. Various religious groups make money by keeping the elderly alive to a vegetative state, they are not aware of anything but the church groups still take money for "looking after them" I won't be so crass as to mention the KEROSINE BATHS, I'll hope you think about the prolonged agony that comes with the diseases of aging, CANCER and ARTHRITIS, to name just two. If anybody has tried to tell you drugs can control the pain, they have lied to you. You are not old enough yet to understand, when you get close to my age 70 you might change your mind and let go of "church" indoctrination.

Well why not?
It costs tens of billions in pension payments to continue to support depressed, demented people, who have lived past their use by date.
Just think of their medical/home-help bill, also in the tens of billions!
Instead of paying/supporting these useless, endlessly complaining appendages, perhaps we should just bump them off?
If we are to allow euthanasia, why should it be voluntary?
We'd save billions, solve the destiny of demography, and fix the housing shortage, with just one single compulsory final solution measure.
And those that lack the courage to top themselves, could duck shove that decision over to others.
Nursing homes could be converted to crematoriums, replete with smokestacks emitting the usual sickly sweet white smoke.
And with all the oldies gone, we'd likely get very different election outcomes, indefinitely. And why not extended this solution to the lay-a-bouts, who bludge on others or the dole. That'd have to be the ultimate incentive to find a job and work!
Yes of course I'm not serious, but that is the slippery slope we get on, if we start down this road.
There is endlessly improving palliative care, and some very effective pain reliving medications!
That said, there is no law that prevents the clinically depressed from ending their own lives.
A painless way is just to visit an unpatrolled beach, and swim out well past the point of return, on an outgoing rip.
Reports coming from near death, third stage drowning survivors, indicates that this is an extremely peaceful form of passing, that doesn't have to involve any other; or emotional blackmail, or the manipulation of the spouse or relatives!
Which is often the real goal of those who continue to threaten to top themselves, and or, others (including the family pet) as well!
Rhrosty.

I endorse the first comment. It comes from a person who has seen life and has the maturity to see that religion has a vested interest in keeping human vegetables alive and those suffering from incurable cancer, etc.

Isn't it time we human grew up? Isn't it time that we abandoned ancient superstitions about god and immortality? Isn't it time we recognized that we all have to die and we should be able to do that with as little pain and discomfort as possible?

Let the righteous vomit up feces if that is what they want. It's not for me. Every human should have the right to end their lives with dignity when they choose.

Only the mind-dead and the religious-crazies and the legal-spooks want everyone to follow their cruel prescriptions.

I agree "You've got to give Dr Philip Nitschke some credit for telling it like it really is."
The problem is simple for me is that when life is intolerable, you have had enough of it some people like my grandma one night had a pleasant evening talking by her bedside. The Last thing she said was "You know Arthur I think I have had enough, Its to go."

My father went in with a cup of tea the following morning and she had died. My dad was really upset and told me " I always loved your mothers mother, as my own mother died early in life and I grew up with my step mother.

Most people I know want to have the right to when they choose. Thank god "that they have the will like by grandmother to choice when they want to.

While what Dr Philip Nitschke says about the financial savings that would come from allowing those who want to leave the right to leave is true, it is not a very smart argument to make. It allows too many biased commentators the room to stir up fear, and there is irrational fear enough surrounding this topic without adding an opportunity to create more.
Yes, some would take the option if it were available, and in those cases some health fund money would be saved. But for so many more, and I believe independent studies bear this out, the option is enough. It's about gaining some feeling of control over when and how we go into that long goodnight. The idea that there are queues of elderly waiting to top themselves is, I suspect, a fantasy.
And once again, can we all just take a step back and remember that all proposals, or all that I know of, include in high-lighted prominence the word VOLUNTARY!

Paul - could you perhaps outline your objection to voluntary euthanasia? I was hoping your article would give some clues to your thinking on this but I'm afraid I have emerged nary-the-wiser.

From what I can deduce however, you seem to be pushing something of a "slippery slope" argument. I imagine your reference to elder abuse for example is an indication that you think the possibility of euthanasia being available will prompt people to cajole their dying relatives into agreeing to undergo this procedure so that they can get their hands on their inheritance.

Firstly I would suggest here that if people are prone to this sort of behaviour then they will probably be abusing their ailing relatives in any case, whether or not they do it with threats of compulsory self-absolution, or by some other means - and so the problem we should be addressing here is abusiveness, rather than the methods through which it is perpetrated.

Secondly then, your perspective seems to be predicated on a lack of faith in our ability to manage and administer a system of voluntary euthanasia, rather than an objection to euthanasia as a concept. Might it change your mind if we were able to come up with an administrative system which you are satisfied would prevent contraventions of ideal practice?

According to the Productivity Commission in 2007, the average cost of a hospital bed in Australia was $1,117 a day*. You can bet it's gone up since then. So to save 'hundreds of thousands of dollars' it's only necessary to let two people die three months before they would have anyway. Keeping just three bedridden people alive for a year when they don't want to be takes us into the million-dollar bracket.

None of which is a reason for killing off people who don't want to die. But it is yet another reason for finding better things to spend taxpayers' money on than prolonging the agonies of people who want to die with dignity at a time of their own choosing.

* http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/mr-yr08-je-je023.htm

David G I always agree with you regarding Voluntary Euthanasia, the religious right has a lot to answer for with cruelty inflicted on people who would like to end their lives with VE, owing to a terminal illness with severe pain and loss of dignity and no hope of recovery.
All those people who are against VE I hope as David said that you enjoy vomiting up faeces, having someone wiping your bum, being fed via tubes as you become a body of only bones, lying in a bed for weeks waiting for your supposed God to take you when he or she feels like taking you,
My end of life should be my decision, not yours, so keep out of my life and I will keep out of yours.

The problem with good palliative care is that it is so generally UNAVAILABLE. The problem with the medical fraternity generally is they are LIFE focused to a fault, insomuch as they consider their duty of care is to offer every form of life extension available to the terminally ill, rather than being exceedingly frank and offering good palliative care on grounds that while the patient should expect to die sooner, they can expect a far more comfortable existence and a dignified, supported exit.

Ditto the Aged Care industry. Residents of high care facilities may be 'alive' in the sense they are breathing but when they spend day after agonising day in beds or chairs, often in urine or faeces loaded nappies, unable to recognise family or friends, walk, talk, feed themselves it beggars sense that they continue to be treated vigorously for conditions that, if left to 'God' would lead to quite rapid death. This to me is far more objectionable than voluntary euthanasia. It is in fact an obscenity.

Not surprisingly you will find quite often among the medical fraternity, a marked difference in how they anticipate their own terminal illness will proceed and the advice they mete out to patients. The other difference is most people with medical knowledge are very aware of how to effectively end their suffering swiftly and painlessly if they so choose. Having said this, there are sensible compassionate Doctors who have 'assisted' their patients to exit this life through generous prescribing of high potency drugs.

Voluntary euthanasia would not really be an issue if people felt confident of receiving excellent end of life care. Right now anyone who thinks that is readily and easily available - my advice is pray that when your time is up, yours is a sudden death.

Dementia is a terrible affliction, that mainly affects the elderly or some aids patients.
That together with arthritis is the principle reasons we incarcerate the elderly, in very expensive nursing home places.
Both of these conditions often can be moderated/postponed, by gentle physical and mental exercise, (use it or lose it) and a healthy diet.
For mine, we'd serve the community far better by finding and curing the cause of these ailments, rather than placing people in places they simply don't want to be, or resorting to so-called mercy killings.
That said, euthanasia already effectively exists, as increasingly strong morphine doses that eventually renders the terminally ill patient comatose; a condition they rarely if ever recover from.
Doctors are trained to save lives, not to end then prematurely. Which sometimes still occurs, as a side effect of effectively making a already dying patient truly comfortable!
As for freedom of choice, any person of sound mind is entitled to make a living will.
A living will can say they are not to receive any treatment beyond increasingly strong pain medication.
So for all practical purposes, people can chose to die, whenever they really want to.
We simply don't need more than that, given a few, calloused, indifferent, unscrupulous people or relatives, will surely use it for other than ethical or humane purposes?
As for urine and feces filled nappies?
All that indicates is criminal short staffing; and or, families who just don't give a dam!
I mean, it's hard to lie in an adjacent hospital bed, listening to an old person, barely able to speak above a whisper, pleading for a pan, or a bottle; all that is needed in most cases, to avoid so-called soiled nappies.
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty - Been involved in the care and deaths of a number of dementia sufferers and terminally ill people have you?

FYI: There are many forms of dementia. Most common types are Alzheimers, Vascular dementia, Parkinson's disease, Dementia with Lewy bodies, Fronto Temporal Lobar Degeneration (FTLD), Huntington's disease, Alcohol related (Korsakoff's syndrome) and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.
Characterized by onset of cognitive difficulties dementia progresses through stages during which profound mental and physical deterioration occurs. When sufferers initially lose control over bladder and bowel function but are still ambulant, regular toileting is usually quite successful. By the time the sufferer has lost any ability to move or even sit unaided, has no speech and little or no recognition of environment, it's nappies or nothing. By this stage the patient is terminally ill with a life expectancy of about 6 months - but with EXCELLENT CARE this torture can be stretched out in some cases to a couple of years.

Sufferers 'incarcerated' in nursing homes usually arrive there in earlier stages, often because the care they need exceeds the capacity of spouse or family to provide, often to the distress as well as relief of those carers.

As for your platitudes about exercise and diet - certainly healthy living habits are desirable and may help but they won't prevent dementia. Goes for arthritis as well.

If you intend making a Living Will, and I recommend everyone over 40 should - it's vital to do so before being diagnosed with any condition affecting mental function. Otherwise your wishes may not be honoured. Likewise appointing enduring Power of Attorney.

Rhrosty, if you believe the dying generally receive what they need to ensure not only high level of relief from pain and suffering but also are given the advice they often need to make choices (if still able or their advocates if not) about end of life care - Sorry old mate, it doesn't happen anywhere near what it should.

So please do a bit of research into what might lie ahead for you and don't insult those of us who have been at the coalface

We are governed by a lot of incompetent leaders all our lives, they even get to decide when and how we die.
It is hard to understand why politicians are so concerned about the economy that they would not jump at the chance of saving hundreds of millions of dollars every year by allowing voluntary euthanasia, I suppose it must be pressure from religious groups that stops them voting in euthanasia.

Askari you are quite right, religious groups are the cause of much misery in the world, they excell themsevles in creating wars, but of course this is different to some person who wishes to end their life with dignity and relief of extreme pain with VE.

Congratulations, Paul. You've made Al Qaeda look compassionate (again). Does Australia really need to undergo a revolution to treat humans as compassionately as we treat our pets?