When are the terminally ill terminally ill David? We have been able to cure alleged terminal illness for over fifty years David in day clinics and with bismuth 213.

Instead, big pharma with their of bought and paid for pollies continue to advocate that thorium-based power or research into same remained prohibited? As they made squillions from chemo, a treatment derived from chemicals used in WW1 to kill thousands if not millions as they cowered in trenches. It's toxic and destroys healthy cells along with the cancerous ones.

This prohibition of thorium has given big pharma the time needed to bring on its inferior to bismuth 213 treatments, which include peptides and or nanoparticles that selectively attack cancer or even Parkinson's disease.

This prohibition has also served the interests of the 3 trillion a year fossil fuel industry and big nuclear alike!

As for assisted suicide, you have guns, David and like anyone here in this wide brown land has a choice of many other options including falling under the wheels of the tractor or in a single vehicle accident with a conveniently located tree, swerving to avoid the odd roo forced by the worst drought in living memory to graze on well travelled roadsides.

As someone suffering an alleged terminal illness, I take extreme issue with your callused indifference and ask why aren't you of all people out there fighting to have this prohibition on life-saving treatment lifted. I too have lost count of the number of lives I snuffed out! But with better reasons than mere convenience!?

Instead of using ungentlemanly language to attack Green Senators? Get right up their fundamental with a war for cheaper power and without exception, that power is none other than green hated Nuclear power. I'm informed at this moment we have only 2 grams of bismuth 213 in the entire world?

Without which we die in far greater numbers than the annual road toll! What are you there for!?
Alan B.

Yes!

Identifying religion with denying others the freedom to die, is harmful to religion.

Let any two sane people who freely and clearly agree for one to kill the other, do so without legal consequences. This, however, does not mean that there will be no adverse spiritual consequences - of course there will and I do not recommend such action!

The dying need to be treated as special...not put down like animals as did Senator Leyonhjelm in his previous life. Clever and all as is my Moggie, I can guarantee none of the animals he put down, he had ever come home to find them having painted the ceiling of their kennels like the Sistine Chapel ...the difference between humans and animals Senator! And may I hasten to assure Alan B, just how special is he ..an unrepeatable miracle !! And how I hope he will be among us for a long time yet ! In my previous life I was a registered nurse and condemn such favorite lies as repeatedly told by assisted suicide advocates like the Senator: "When treating the terminally ill, doctors routinely ramp up the morphine beyond what is necessary in the knowledge that this will likely kill the patient. In many of these cases, it is done despite being well aware that the patient has never given consent to such action." What a vile insult to doctors and nurses. Morphine calibrated as it is by today's doctors and nurses DOES NOT KILL..the FAILURE to relieve pain hastens death which is ultimately brought about by disease. Senator Hanson- Young's policies are anathema to me but Senator Leyonhjelm's smutty insult to her, said more about him than her. I am only the third post to his OLO contribution today which speaks volumes for the support he has... with all the usual red herrings e.g. the "Christian" Kevin Andrews...when you have to stoop to subtle sectarian bigotry to prosecute an argument, your argument must be pretty hollow ..as the book beside me Assisted Suicide: The Liberal, Humanist Case Against, testifies. It is written by Kevin Yuill, an atheist from the University of Sunderland UK. Don't try that on Senator.This is NOT an issue peculiar to Christians..Catholics in particular

*…In my previous life as a veterinarian I lost count of the number of domestic animals I euthanised…*

In my previous life as a killer, I lost count of the number of animals I euthanised.

Try working in an abattoir, on the slaughter floor. It makes women kill their husbands with ease, and hang their skins on the back verandah to dry, stew up his remains and feed the stew to the kids for dinner…(Aberdeen NSW, 1980’s).

God had a major decision to make earlier on. Give animals immortality, or introduce death and regeneration. He chose the latter.

Now we have death to deal with. Thanks God!

I've met plenty of people in life I wished death on: you know what? Most of them are dead now, so just be patient, death comes soon enough!

//Clever and all as is my Moggie, I can guarantee none of the animals he put down, he had ever come home to find them having painted the ceiling of their kennels like the Sistine Chapel//

Your keep your cat in a kennel? Weird. Also really, really bad for native wildlife. Those wretched beasts (the cats, not the cute little birdies and stuff) should be kept indoors at night. And during the day. Actually, what's best is just not to keep them at all.

Another important difference is that animals don't ask to be put down. As with many of the services performed by veterinarians, such as neutering and microchipping, we as pet owners decide what is in our pet's best interests on their behalf because they can't. My dog is quite clever in her own special way, but I don't think she'd fully grasp the concept of 'informed consent'. People are different; they can make their own decisions and communicate what they want to other people.

//Morphine calibrated as it is by today's doctors and nurses DOES NOT KILL//

It does with a sufficient dose. Mind you, so does everything else. The dose makes the poison.

//Senator Hanson- Young's policies are anathema to me but Senator Leyonhjelm's smutty insult to her, said more about him than her. I am only the third post to his OLO contribution today which speaks volumes for the support he has//

Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because people dislike Senator Whatshisface they don't support voluntary euthanasia. That would be an ad hominem fallacy. The case for euthanasia stands or falls on its own merits, not the fact that Dave is a bit of a turd.

And it's not like he's the only politician in favour of it. There are quite a few, on both sides of the fence, and they aren't all quite so barking mad as Dave.

Just last year here in NSW a voluntary euthanasia bill was defeated in the Legislative Council 20 to 19 - as slim a margin as possible. It's really only a matter of time before we get voluntary euthanasia. I suspect it probably won't be the end of the world. And hey, if people are that bothered about it they can always not get euthanased. It is voluntary, after all.

//This is NOT an issue peculiar to Christians..Catholics in particular//

No, of course not. It works the other way as well; it's not just godless heathens and followers of 'alternative' faiths that are in favour. I know a few Catholics that are.