//As differences we could note that perhaps the person on the ledge is young and otherwise well while the candidate for euthanasia or assisted suicide is suffering physically.//

We could also note that the person on the ledge has probably been diagnosed with a mental illness. Their judgement is impaired and they have a diminished capacity to make rational decisions.

The euthanasia candidate, on the other hand, is more likely to be in full possession of all their marbles and to have made a considered and rational decision as to when they wish to end their life - something I regard as a basic human right, a right that Mr. Russell would seek to deny them. Apparently he feels he has more of a right to decide when people should live and die than the people in question, which strikes me as a bit arrogant.

//We are making judgements.//

You sure are, Mr. Russell. You are judging rational people as having less capacity than yourself to make a reasonable determination of when they have the right to seek euthanasia. But since you aren't aware of their personal circumstances and they are, I think they have more capacity to make these sort of decisions because you lack a lot of the necessary information.

Which is why choices like these should be left to the individual, not interfering busy-bodies like Mr. Russell.

Lifeline Crisis Support & Suicide Prevention Service: 13 11 14

We do not have to be born. However, we do have a right to decide we no longer wish to live and follow that decision. We must not work to prevent all suicides.

So it seems like you have difficulties judging the values of different peoples lives. Anyone who pretends to value all life the identically is lying or getting instructions from imaginary friends in the sky.

Noone would be equally upset at the news of a 100 year old person passing away, vs a baby/toddler. No one would deny that the death of someone involved in charities/care/community service is as regretful as a pedophile/rapist.

If you accept that life can be valued differently for different people when we discuss the extremes, you can continue these comparisons to reach your own judgements. I don't expect everyone to agree in these judgements, but I also don't expect to force anyone to accept my own value judgments.

In regards to the comparison you used for the person with a mental illness wanting to commit suicide, and the aged/ill person, obviously most people would agree that suicide should be prevented in these situations. The tools available to us include mental health counseling, support groups, treatment of the primary illness with modern medicine, as well as relief from suffering where a treatment is not available. Sure, the lives may be valued differently by some, but still valued none-the-less.

This then brings me to how you address suffering, or I should say do not address suffering. Yep you completely neglect to discuss this. So what about those suffering with the most terrible inflictions where there are no possible treatments or even relief?

The fact that those with terminal diseases, incurable illnesses, or severe pain and distress want to end their lives is tragic like you say. It is tragic that their quality of life is so diminished that they themselves would rather not continue living. However the fact that people like you think that you can tell someone of sound mind and judgment, who is facing suffering greater than you can even imagine, for the rest of their probably short lives, that you have decided to force them to continue living in pain is as evil as inflicting this pain and suffering on the person yourself

david f,

We can still work to prevent all suicides, however where we can't prevent suicides with the tools available to us, and pain and suffering goes unrelieved, we can work to support the decisions of those who no longer wish to live in this manner.

I am sick of this "we MUST do something about something", from people who set themselves up to 'do things' either for money or kudos and the fact they like telling other people what to do.

If a person decides that his or her life is so bad that it is no longer worth living, it's not for the rest of us to decide differently for them. We have no idea how they feel; and people who have come to the point of suicide are not going to discuss it with anyone else so they they can interfere as this fellow wants to.

I doubt that this meddler has known the despair of an unsuccessful suicide who has been stopped from completing the act by a meddler or as the result of a botched attempt.

The author's statement "‘elephant in the room’ that is euthanasia and assisted suicide" pretty much screwsup/contradicts his other wish list item "we must work to prevent all suicides".

I think there are many different types of suicide:

- golly I'm bored, rich and famous, made it and so there is nothing else: Marilyn Monroe, Amy Winehouse and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Williams#Addiction_and_health_problems

- people with a terminal illness and living in pain, who understandibly want and deserve to speed things up

- kids of late teens, have never fitted in, no job, no hope that they can see, join IS? as an adventurous way of committing suicide. Normal sad kids.

- an older category whose depression is preventable and reversable.

The author does the issue and differences a disservice.

Pete

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Dear Paul (the author),

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Life and death are fundamental human rights. Nobody has the right to prevent anybody from living or dying against his or her will.

It is evident that many of those who see no solution to their problems, apart from ending their lives, may change their minds on receiving competent on-going assistance from somebody who cares.

That is what we, as compassionate human beings, should provide : assistance, offered (not imposed) with as much tact and delicacy as humanly possible.

When death is a deliberate, carefully reasoned decision taken by the person concerned - not just an impulsive, emotional reaction - society should facilitate access to the most humane method of euthanasia that modern science can allow.

Democracy and justice have been insensitive far too long to the pain and suffering of people wishing to lawfully exercise their right to life and death. They are left with no other choice but to have recourse, alone with their solitude and in a terrible state of It is the duty of mature, civilised societies to provide the means despair, to the most barbaric, inhuman and expeditious methods in order to carry out their macabre enterprise.

for their citizens to have access to a peaceful and painless death, preferably in a warm, cosy environment - if that is their personal decision.

Naturally, there is a need for a certain number of safeguards to protect the vulnerable from the malevolent influence of ill-intentioned persons in their entourage. Just as there should be psychological, medical and social assistance for those who are in need of them.

The ill and suffering must also continue to have full, unrestricted access to the best available professional palliative care at all times, whether they decide to end their lives or not.

The provision by society of a calm, peaceful and orderly death also allows those of religious faith to receive spiritual solace if they so desire - which is impracticable when they throw themselves off cliff-tops, blow their brains out, lay down on rail tracks, or slit their wrists and bleed to death.

.

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Dear Paul (the author),

.

Life and death are fundamental human rights. Nobody has the right to prevent anybody from living or dying against his or her will.

It is evident that many of those who see no solution to their problems, apart from ending their lives, may change their minds on receiving competent on-going assistance from somebody who cares.

That is what we, as compassionate human beings, should provide : assistance, offered (not imposed) with as much tact and delicacy as humanly possible.

When death is a deliberate, carefully reasoned decision taken by the person concerned - not just an impulsive, emotional reaction - society should facilitate access to the most humane method of euthanasia that modern science can allow.

Democracy and justice have been insensitive far too long to the pain and suffering of people wishing to lawfully exercise their right to life and death. They are left with no other choice but to have recourse, alone with their solitude and in a terrible state of despair, to the most barbaric, inhuman and expeditious methods in order to carry out their macabre enterprise.

It is the duty of mature, civilised societies to provide the means for their citizens to have access to a peaceful and painless death, preferably in a warm, cosy environment - if that is their personal decision.

Naturally, there is a need for a certain number of safeguards to protect the vulnerable from the malevolent influence of ill-intentioned persons in their entourage. Just as there should be psychological, medical and social assistance for those who are in need of them.

The ill and suffering must also continue to have full, unrestricted access to the best available professional palliative care at all times, whether they decide to end their lives or not.

The provision by society of a calm, peaceful and orderly death also allows those of religious faith to receive spiritual solace if they so desire - which is impracticable when people throw themselves off cliff-tops, blow their brains out, lay down on rail tracks, or slit their wrists and bleed to death.

.

Hi there DAVID F...

I've always respected your enormous intellect, and once again you've shown how clearly you can think. You said inter alia '...we do not have to be born...' finishing with '...we must not work to prevent all suicides...' ? I can understand your thinking, when one is old, unwell, lonely or just fed-up with living, one might contemplate suicide.

My first wife, who I loved dearly even though we were divorced, committed suicide in March of last year. Consequently I've been left with an enormous level of guilt, a guilt I'll carry to my grave. You see David, it's those who are left behind who suffer. Suicide has an profound effect upon all of those who remain, even though the deceased no longer has to bear the problem or problems. Elizabeth's best friend was heartbroken by her death as well, so the living also suffers, only they suffer much, much longer.

Dear o sung wu,

It is a great loss when anyone you are close to dies. Suicide can be a selfish act when your parting causes grief to others. Who am I to pass judgment on others? Who am I to weigh one person's sorrow at continuing to live in misery as against the sorrow of another person who will mourn their passing?

We may try to do our best, but we can't even be sure what is best. My first wife died of natural causes at 89. I grieve for her. Yesterday I got news that a good friend died. One can't live without suffering. The end of life is the end of suffering.

I feel I am blathering so I will stop.

o sung wu,

It must have come as a horrific shock. Unreal. A nightmare.

It is only natural to be deeply affected and to wonder why and what we might have done, if only.

You are in mourning.

It is good that you feel able to reach out. That bodes well for you.

Be constantly aware that notwithstanding the anonymous nature of forums like this the people are real. There are others who care.

Take courage and keep posting

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My mother-in-law used to get very upset whenever my wife and I had to drive back to Paris after a quiet weekend in the country. It was a three to four hours drive on the very busy “Autoroute du Soleil” that runs all the way down to the Côte d’Azur on the Mediterranean Sea.

She lived alone and my wife was her only child.

There were no mobile phones in those days so there was no way we could warn her if we were held up by the traffic.

She used to worry herself sick at the thought that we might have an accident.

“What will happen to me if you get killed or are paraplegic for the rest of your lives?” she used to demand when we finally breezed in.

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Whats all the fuss about. if someone wants to suicide they should knock themselves out.{no pun intended} why should the burden fall on the majority to ensure they stay alive. Considering humans are not an endangered specie with a unsustainable population growth the planet should be grateful another consumer with a trail of polution is de activated.

Hi there DAVID F & BANJO PATTERSON...

I guess to every obverse there's a reverse. The survivors must finally give a sigh of relief when a loved one finally passes on from a terminal illness ? Conversely, those wretched souls inflicted by depression, loneliness, sense of abandonment, and feelings of desertion, finally get the peace they so eagerly seek, when they commit suicide. Leaving the survivors, wracked with a sense of guilt, feeling sorry for themselves, often saying;

"If only I'd known, we could've talked about it and sorted the whole thing out, without the need for them doing away with themselves" ? "Oh poor bugger me, how could they do such a thing, how selfish of them" ? "Oh poor me".

Often the reasons for someone taking their life, is clearly evident for months on end, even years ? And we're either too busy, too selfish, or too something or other, to listen ? Uttering words like he/she has got to learn to stand on their own two feet and face their problems, just simply grow up ! just platitudes, tired ol' (meaningless) platitudes ?

The morning after Elizabeth's suicide, the Qld police contacted me by phone (I'm in NSW, Elizabeth resided on the Gold Coast, QLD.) asking me the usual questions concerning what I knew of her lifestyle etc.

One of the statements he made '...you're an ex copper, you know how it is...'? Yes I knew 'how it was, OK', but it didn't diminish the profound shock, the 'stunning' effect her death had on me, and still has, 18 months on. And it still hurts me every day.

Hi there ONTHEBEACH...

Your sentiments are greatly received, they really are. Your decency and compassion are so very welcome, though I don't believe I necessarily deserve them ? We were divorced, but remained on excellent terms, with no acrimony or antipathy whatsoever. She often remarked, we would've been better as brother and sister rather than a married couple ? Still, that's completely moot I should think.

She often thought my job caused many of our difficulties too ? There might be some truth in that, as there's a pretty high divorce rate amongst our lot, so I'm told, and I tend to believe it to be honest with you ?

ONTHEBEACH, thank you again for your humanity, I sincerely appreciate it, believe me.

Dear onthebeach,

You sound very decent. I think everybody deserves decency and compassion, but not everyone gets it,

Paul is against all suicides UNLESS they occur as a result of refusing food and water. But you must sift carefully through his blog to unearth this lump of hypocrisy.

https://youtu.be/ge7dlzMCbos?t=6491

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Dear o sung wu,

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Your story revives a familiar melody that often plays in my mind as my dear wife and I continue to advance in life as one :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0MkpcI3khY

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Hi (again) DAVID F...

You're so right when you choose to describe our mutual friend ONTHEBEACH, as 'decent'. In fact I've learnt over time, his decency pales into insignificance when compared with his enormous capacity for compassion ! He's a really honourable individual in every way.

G'day there BANJO PATERSON...

Thank you for your link to that very evocative song of Merle HAGGARD. Indeed the lyrics do speak volumes to us all who've suffered a traumatic loss. The only trouble is, it 'kinda' drags me back to the events of March, 2014 which is best consigned to the back of one's mind. In fact it tends to make me feel quite melancholy.

It's funny BANJO, as a copper I've had to deliver similar awful news to others concerning the loss of a loved one, and generally you tend to simply 'brush it off' as you're taught in training. However when it involves yourself, it really brings things back into stark reality, at the ghastly pain a police officer (must) necessarily inflict on others, thankfully occasionally ? Life can be a bitch at times ? Thanks again.