We must have this debate. We must demand legislation that creates clear guidelines as to how and when people can be assisted in dying.

Palliative care is enormously important. Great strides have been made in this area of care. It should be available to all Australians if appropriate. But, palliative care is not appropriate in all cases at the end of life.

At the moment, what happens in Australia, is completely arbitrary. Totally depends on the doctor who happens to be looking after you.

And Onthebeach, don't know when you were last in a hospital, or a nursing home, but even in country towns, Advanced Health Care directives are strongly encouraged to anybody over the age of 55. They are almost part and parcel of the initial 'interview' when presenting to a hospital: Do you have an Advanced Health Care Directive. These do not prevent the requirement that some patients may have to be assisted to die.

We allow choices in determining how to give birth. We allow choices in how we live our adult lives, to marry or not, to have children or not. Why are we not allowing people to make their own choices in how they wish to die? Their OWN choice. Not the greedy inheritors or trustees or whatever other nonsense 'vested' interest is put up as denying this choice.

Dear Yvonne,

<<We must have this debate. We must demand legislation that creates clear guidelines as to how and when people can be assisted in dying.>>

What's there to debate? If/when two (or more) people agree to assist each other, be it in living or in dying or in whatever else when no third party is hurt, then nobody has a right to deny them that freedom.

<<At the moment, what happens in Australia, is completely arbitrary. Totally depends on the doctor who happens to be looking after you.>>

What happens at the moment in Australia, is that medical doctors are given powers over others which nobody ought to have, notwithstanding the the issue in question is not even a medical one.

<<We allow choices in determining how to give birth.>>

Pretty limited as well.

<<We allow choices in how we live our adult lives,>>

Limited too!

<<Why are we not allowing people to make their own choices in how they wish to die?>>

"We"??
I am not disallowing you anything, so please do not include me in this general accusation. The one's who do not allow you to live as you choose and die as you choose, are the rogue gang of the state and its government - and the reason they do so is because they like power, they just like to control you and me and they have the guns to do so, those bastards.

Not sure what your point is Yuyutsu. This debate is about legalizing and regulating voluntary euthanasia. Not about whether YOU allow anything or not. It is about being criminally liable. You know, as in going to jail when found to be assisting somebody to die. If you think it should be a free for all and doesn't involve you, then don't comment and ignore the thread.

At the moment it is doctors who are making the decisions. And that is crazy. What happens on a daily basis in hospitals right now is completely arbitrary. Legislation has now been a fact in a number of countries with success. It is past time for Australia to do the same.

Dear Yvonne,

I AM writing straight on the topic, which is "Time for euthanasia to be regulated": my view is clearly that it should not.

<<This debate is about legalizing and regulating voluntary euthanasia.>>

Legalising (more accurately, decriminalising) - YES.
Regulating - NO.

<<Not about whether YOU allow anything or not.>>

Sorry, this was in response to you writing: "Why are WE not allowing people to make their own choices in how they wish to die?"
- This 'we' includes myself, yet I have not disallowed you anything.

<<At the moment it is doctors who are making the decisions. And that is crazy.>>

Exactly! Government is colluding with doctors, giving them extraordinary powers. My life and my death should not be in the hands of doctors (unless of course I freely choose myself to give them such powers over my body, which I never did).

Sorry Yuyutsu for misreading what you meant. I'm not altogether sure where legalizing euthanasia differs from regulating, because surely with legalizing come guidelines, therefore rules, will be articulated as to who can avail themselves on being medically assisted to die.

As it is currently, committing suicide, singly or with someone else is no longer a criminal act and requires no regulation.

I do separate the two. I do not equate voluntary euthanasia with suicide. Semantically they may be the same thing, but suicide is closely linked to depression. I know this is not always the case, but 'suicide prevention' is all about tackling depression.

Euthanasia, medically assisted death, is not about being depressed, whereas in the common parlance, suicide is.

Dear Yvonne,

<<I'm not altogether sure where legalizing euthanasia differs from regulating>>

'Legalising' is a bit of a misnomer: I rather use the term 'decriminalising'.

Helping another to kill themselves, for whatever reason, is currently illegal in Australia because someone made a law to that effect. I believe that this law should be undone, hence it's not about the state/government making it legal, but rather about stopping to make it illegal.

Regulation OTOH, means placing legal restrictions on what and how we do things, which is different altogether.

<<therefore rules, will be articulated as to who can avail themselves on being medically assisted to die.>>

I am saying that one should not have to explain in the first place WHY they want to die (and be assisted in that), therefore there should be no special case for "medical" reasons: whenever person A asks person B, who could be anyone, to assist them in dying, no legislation should deem person B a criminal for killing person A according to their own request (I still consider it an immoral sin, but that's a religious issue which has nothing to do with this discussion: the state, a secular institution, has no divine authority to try guarding our morality).

<<As it is currently, committing suicide, singly or with someone else is no longer a criminal act and requires no regulation.>>

Committing suicide singly is no longer a criminal act in Australia, but unfortunately, assisting another still is.

<<but suicide is closely linked to depression.>>

Suicide can be for numerous reasons, too many to list: depression is only one of them. There should be no legal difference whether one wants to die because they are depressed; because they want to join their cat in heaven; or because they no longer want to suffer the pains of a terminal illness.

Please don't get me wrong: I don't support suicide for selfish reasons (that excludes for-example Tibetan monks torching themselves to alert the world of Chinese oppression or donating one's heart while alive to save another's life) - it just shouldn't be any of the state's business.