Australian politicians are the very last people who should be making decisions on people's lives and deaths. It should be a matter for the individual.

So David, you would support a 15-year-old who lays claim to her “human right to VAD” on the grounds that she is heart-broken after breaking up with her boyfriend and feels life is no longer worth living?

After all, you say: “We don’t need doctors involved. . . . there is no need to assess people (except for decision making capacity)”, and that it is fallacious to say that, “children don’t have decision-making capacity, they can’t make important decisions about their lives”.

To provide her with VAD would meet your requirements of “respecting her individual autonomy and not discriminating”. You would be recognising her “right to access VAD so that (her) quality of life is not reduced below what (she) considers to be an acceptable threshold”
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The survey you favourably quote says the only criteria needed for VAD are, “a person has decision making capacity, is well informed, and makes a voluntary decision”. Well, this girl should easily meet those criteria. Don’t forget, you wrote that “discriminating based on the degree or type of suffering, life expectancy, age” is ethically wrong
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Essentially you are advocating for giving assistance to anyone, anytime who wishes to kill themselves. Hmmm.

I disagree.

While there's life there is hope. Nearly 8 years ago I was told I had an inoperable brain tumour. Now the average life span for brain cancer is 14 months. With less than 2% making past 5 years, and none making past 7.

I had my second brain scan a couple of months ago and apart from some scar tissue was given an all clear.

Had I listened to the nincompoop author, I'd have taken an arm full of poison years ago.

Hardly a week goes by without some new miracle cure being discovered. And we've had miracle cancer cure, the alpha particle bismuth 213, for over half a century.
Alan B.

Good for you, Alan. However, our lives are OURS, not some crappy politician's or 'expert's'. Most of these trashy people don't believe in God, but they act like Gods themselves.

It's OK to have minors getting their bodies mutilated without any consent from even their parents. Big Brother says so! But, some poor old bugger suffering and fed up with life and the Brave New World, has to continue suffering.

These arrogant, dictatorial bastards are now saying that paracetamol will be restricted - fewer tablets to the packet - because too many people are overdosing. People who have been advised by their doctors to take up to six Panadol Osteo for their osteoarthritis will have to beg for it; all because a few people (no numbers quoted of course) overdosed on paracetamol, deliberately or accidentally, who knows?

Australia is now a bloody awful country for the sick and the old, thanks to that dreadful creature, Albanese, who seems intent on taking us back to the Dark Ages with everything he does.

VAD isn't for depression! Nobody should kill themselves simply because they're having a bad day. There are things we can reverse, death ain't one of them.
Alan B.

Alan

I like the idea of people making their own decisions and not having politicians, bureaucrats and social media doing it for them.

Of course death is irreversible; that's why some people seek it.

The article comes short of addressing the root problem, which is that states belligerently grab for themselves the authority to protect even those who do not seek their protection: in the context of this article, against murder.

I can understand that most people want to be protected against murder (among other things), but even then, why particularly choose the state to be one's protector? this is not a free choice, this is a case of having no choice at all.

Suppose the state observed and therefore assumed that most people sought its protection, then why wouldn't it do the decent thing and make that the default while allowing people to opt out of its protection? The answer is that the state does not do so because it is not a decent body, because its whole existence came about by force and not by the will of the people, its victims.

It is not that I support murder, not even VAD, but had we been able to tell the state in advance, "Thanks for your offer of protection, but no thanks, I do not seek your protection against being murdered, so I release you of all responsibility and if I happen to be murdered then that would be none of your business.", then this whole discussion of VAD would have not been necessary to begin with!

There’s an evil oppression at hand.

A war rages in the mystical Canberran Heaven between the archetypal Angels, while the little people of earth below shudder in fear of its crushing consequences.

But the archangel Falou has shone a light on the path to salvation for us all.

Play on regardless, grow wealthy by their mistakes, don’t lose faith in your own trusted beliefs, and don’t support fools by voting for them!

VAD. It's now vogue in most states. We're told if life becomes too intolerable, we can get a needle that ends it all.

And for many oldies, life is largely intolerable. Why? Because bones turn to chalk, hips break, and it takes years for the public system to replace them. And there limits how long you can bear unbearable pain before you say, I want to end it all.

You try to do something physical and the heart thumps so hard in your chest that you have to sit and practise beathing until the rate normalises.

All part of getting old, we're told. Nothing we can do about it except fill you full of enough drugs that you all but rattle.

Wrong. We can do plenty. We can provide EDTA chelation therapy to clean out clogged arteries and veins so that a healthy blood supply negates things like hips breaking when asked to bear the load as you step up a step, e.g.

We can apply HRT, which for men should include mandated testosterone replacement. Testosterone has no peer as a vascular dilator. And if given to women, enough to make some blokes climb up on the roof and pull the ladder up after them.

There is a popular but unproven theory that testosterone may be associated with cancer and enlarged prostates. If this were true, then every 18- and 19-year-old on the planet would be a bag of tumours and have prostates the size of oranges.

We could make life far more tolerable for our oldies, but that would chew into big pharma's massive profits associated with managing old folks' symptoms. And put many surgeons on dole queues. Better we should offer sanctioned murder or VAD.
Alan B.

Remember if you opt for EDTA chelation therapy, to take the recommended complimentary minerals and vitamins, as EDTA Chelation therapy claws out some of the good guys as well as the bad ones.

EDTA chelation therapy as part of public health, would massively reduce the load on our hospitals and doctor's surgeries. And also, massively reduce the health care budget. And all but empty out nursing homes.

The downside is that big pharma's profit curve would all but flat line and there would be threats to Dis-endorse all medical practitioners who provide EDTA chelation therapy.

On Covid, children with clean arteries and veins were vastly less ill while oldies with clogged and calcified arteries and veins were dropping like flies!
Alan B.

VAD legislation is a thumbs up for government to treat death as a lifestyle option. Nursing homes full? VAD. Mental health services stretched? VAD. Long hospital waiting lists? VAD. Homelessness? VAD. Feeling old and miserable? VAD. Retirement not what you'd hoped for? VAD.

The Department of Death will be very busy solving all of society's shortcomings and we will all be happy: All praise the Giant Hammer, solver of all our problems! Don't be selfish buddy. You've had a good life, now it's time for you to help out your fellow citizens. Oh, and the Happy Death Co, owned by Chairman Dan's mates, will have the exclusive rites to your termination.

Go Death! Go Death! Go Death! Yeah!

Almost every aged negative health condition or infirmity is the result of clogged arteries and veins, along with consequent reduced oxygen transfer and reduced hormones. [Incidently, what make a hormone? A: when you don't pay her.]

You clean out those arteries and veins and include HRT and most of those referred to conditions disappear! A better oxygenated brain and hey presto, better balance, memory and cognitive ability.

Add HRT and better mobility and weight control ensues. And far fewer trips to the doctor/health services as well. Independance returns in spades along with interest in sex and other pleasurable activities.

We could cut migration by at least half, just keeping our current expertise keep on keeping on and bone and muscle would become stronger able to bear more weight and physical endeavour.

ttbn would feel like a kid again. Sorry ttbn, don't know where we could get you one of those on such short notice. Maybe a nanny? Just kidding mate.

In fact, the only downside if there is one is the downward profit curve of big pharma and some millionaire doctors. And phuck the human rights of oldies to the best, least expensive health care!
Alan B.

People want VAD when life no longer seems worth living. And that has to include most old folk.

Who as a discriminated demographic are denied the best health care but are used to bulk up big pharma and millionaire doctor's bank accounts.

Take away old folks and the income they generate for the aforementioned, and they'd go broke.

Time for the BS to end and human right to choose was returned to old people along with the best possible, but routinely denied human right to choose the best health care options that would make VAD little more than a whimsical notion.

Big pharma and their, never questioning devotee disciple doctors, have, I believe, a lot to answer for.
Alan B.