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Canberrans want good deaths : Comments
By David Swanton, published 5/7/2024Why are dementia and like conditions such a big issue? Dementia is now the greatest burden of disease in the over-65s, the most significant cause of death in women and the second leading cause of death for all Australians.
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Dear JP,
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According to government statistics, hanging has become the most common method of suicide in Australia and the use of this method increased substantially over the last 25 years. Age-standardised rates of suicide by hanging remain much higher for males than females but have increased for both sexes.
In 2022 there were 3,249 suicides. That’s a rate of about 9 suicides a day, every day of the year.
While the reasons for an individual’s suicide death are personal and often complex, overall peaks and troughs in rates and numbers of deaths by suicide historically coincide – more or less – with social and economic events.
One in 6 (16.7%) Australians aged 16–85 had experienced serious thoughts about taking their own life at some point in their lives.
One in 14 (7.1%) of Australians aged 16–85 years had made a suicide plan and around 5% had attempted suicide during their lifetime.
The International Association for Suicide Prevention indicates that an estimated 700 000 people die by suicide, worldwide, each year, and, globally, suicide is the fourth leading cause of death in 15-29-year-olds.
I think we have to recognise that life and death are two sides of the same coin. There can be no life without death and no death without life. The two are absolutely inseparable. If life is a fundamental human right, then death is too.
It will not happen overnight, but we must prepare for a radical change in our attitude towards life and death. Democracy and justice are solidly anchored in an ocean of inertia by the massive iron chains of archaic religious dogma in a position of opposition to the most fundamental of human rights. Our 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.
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