I don't want to “live in decrepitude” in a nursing home either, chum. Do you? If you do, then there is something very wrong with you. Or, you actively want to continue making an nuisance of yourself, having people run around after you, at your beck and call. Of course, you might be unlucky enough to parked in a place like the Oakden in Adelaide, which, after years of complaints, has finally been closed down, with several of the the staff being reported by police for cruelty and neglect. Charges since dropped, of course, which shows how unimportant elderly people in nursing homes are. The Premier hasn't even mentioned the affair to irresponsible Minister who was supposed be responsible, and she is going to tough it out, because most people didn't have a loved one in the Oakden hell hole, and couldn't care less. For all you avid multiculturalists, the Minister is of Greek background; those people who are always blathering about their respect and care for their own elderly ones.

As for Exit International, ex-Doctor Nitschke (he is doing well enough to give up his medical registration, and his wife is still profitably doctoring) the word “sham” comes easily to mind. Lectures are provided on what to kill yourself with, but you need to get the where with all yourself, illegally, from Mexico, and risk been caught and prosecuted by Federal Police. Exit and ex-Dr. Nitschke do absolutely nothing to help people off this mortal coil. There is no point in harping on them or hounding them. They are merely advocates for euthanasia, as are many organisations and individuals.

Paul Russell has bored me to death for long enough to not bother reading all of his diatribe. I would just like to use the opportunity to say that, in a genuine, caring democracy, all people would have the right to deal with their only real personal asset – their lives – in whatever way they see fit. Australia has not yet reached that level of democracy.

Another pile of garbage from another would be petty dictator.

Pull your head in Paul Russell, you have no right to interfere in other peoples lives, your delusions of grandeur are disgusting.

"I suppose an alternative might have been a lifetime membership, but I digress."

No you don't digress you take cheap shots and ridicule which is the very thing you accused the Fellows' of doing.

Her behaviour was far more polite and civil than Somerville's. What's ruder: to utter an expletive or demand that torture and slavery remain legal?

What exactly is the problem here?

Publishing accounts of people who tried and failed to commit suicide, but are now glad they failed, does not make the case against suicide or assisted suicide.

People who want to end their lives because they want to prevent themselves and their families from suffering the pain of long-term, agonising terminal illness is a rational decision.

More controversially, rational suicide by people who are not terminally ill, but want to end their lives, for example, because of a lifetime of debilitating depression or because catastrophic bankruptcy leaves their lives unlivable (especially unforgiveable in a society that punishes economic failure), is still grounds for an individual's choice about life and death.

As a society, we are still a long way from accepting that life does not offer all individuals all the promises it has to offer. A few individuals take the rational way out.

That is their choice. In an overpopulated world of 7 billion people, where life is increasingly undervalued, why can't we respect this?

Well, I guess there is always the other side in an argument: Here it is in the euthanasia debate.
Among the three thousand or so suicides each year in Australia, how many of them are assisted?
Very few I suspect.
So most people choosing suicide as an exit strategy for an intolerable existence, do it their way, in their own time and space.
I think Paul Russell wastes his time on countering the euthanasia debate.