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The Forum > Article Comments > Ease their pain: don't help them die > Comments

Ease their pain: don't help them die : Comments

By Katrina George, published 5/5/2005

Katrina George argues against voluntary euthanasia and self sacrifice by women.

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OK. Two stories from my family.

My 97 Y.O. grandmother developed pneumonia and was hospitalised, she insisted that the life support system be removed, said good bye to my mother, aunt and uncle and went peacefully on her terms. Not because she was a woman but because she was a vital independant human being.

2nd story, my father (an alcoholic, age 53), collapsed at the dinner table after his evening meal. The locum declared that dad had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage - he delayed the calling of an ambulance, after about 15 minutes the doctor called an ambulance and when it arrived confered for some time with the officer. He then checked my father again and informed my mother that he was dead. Autopsy confirmed the massive blood clot that destroyed what was left of my father's mind. These were decisions by men. And a very good decision for my family, we were able to grieve and move on with our lives.

The point I am making is Katrina doesn't have a clue what she is talking about. (Running out of time for anything more eloquent).
Posted by Ringtail, Wednesday, 11 May 2005 8:08:34 AM
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I think there are two separate issues going on here. One is that ANY issue, history, artefact or utterance can be subjected to feminist analysis, which if well done will show up what gender issues, if any, are at work there. I thought the stuff in Katrina's piece about women not wanting to be burdens was absolutely bang-on. The point I would want to make is that that is their choice. What does she want to do - take that choice away from them in order to empower them as women? Would she offer the same argument about abortion, another emotive topic revolving round the control over one's own body? I doubt it very much, and she would be right not to do so.

Having said that, the second issue is Philip Nitschke and voluntary euthanasia. Please note the word voluntary, which most of Nitschke's opponents either ignore or apparently don't understand. Nitschke himself has a long history as an advocate and activist in good humane/humanist causes -- spent several years working for the Gurindji at Wave Hill in the 70s, spent more years driving round Darwin providing a mobile medical service for drug addicts and sex workers, stood as a Greens candidate in the NT. His advocacy of euthanasia is to do with increasing individual human freedom and decreasing human suffering, and is also to do with his resistance to the management of death in our society by the legal and medical professions and the church - particularly the Christian romanticisation of sufffering, which, as he demonstrates, permeates the culture of palliative care. Every argument put up by Katrina apart from the feminist angle is engaged with, discussed and refuted in his book Killing Me Softly, which I strongly recommend she reads.
Posted by Lucy Honeychurch, Wednesday, 11 May 2005 3:40:57 PM
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Great posts Lucy and Ringtail. Katrina, get off your high mare re it's a gender thing. It may be that pre women's lib little old ladies feel that to live longer than George, they are a burden on society. As they must have felt once upon a time if they got pregnant outside marriage. But it's not a conspiracy against little old ladies. I am a great admirer of Doctor Phillip Nietchske (sorry if i've mispelt). He is taking this society outside of the little pine box we live and die in. He's hardly a Pied Piper or a Jim Jones re suicide, he's just giving us alternatives that are medically (and should be morally) available. What are we worried about, Soylent Green?
Posted by Di, Wednesday, 11 May 2005 8:07:05 PM
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Thanks Goodness there is someone out there like Katrina. Those who want to end their lives and avoid suffering can do so by suicide. Do not force on to the rest of society euthanasia laws which will inevitably be taken advantage of by people to dispose of others where it is expedient to them either because of reasons of inheritance (as has been documented elsewhere) or convenience ( no time to look after the ill).
Posted by Sophia, Friday, 13 May 2005 12:11:35 PM
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Sophia, suicide is against the law. Voluntary Euthanasia shouldn't be. Society in western world now enjoys greater quality of life with medical advances that offer us better longevity that we all can take advantage of.

However, there is no cure for certain illnesses which can only offer a painful, undignified death after much suffering, until such a time that medical advances or breakthoughs change this. This is about an individual choosing the right time to die. If one is in that predicament, one would be a stupid idiot to be influenced by one's family, who, in your paranoid view, would be hovering around the bed and waving the last will and testament. Sure it is an issue which needs to be addressed and debated in a forum, but not shoved under the bed because we don't want to go there, until it's you or me?
Posted by Di, Friday, 13 May 2005 10:11:33 PM
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Actually, Di, according to Philip Nitschke, suicide is not illegal in Australia. What IS illegal is aiding suicide, hence the attempted legal action against the 20-odd people who sat with Nancy Crick as she died. The federal government is currently acting to tighten this law and remove grey areas including advice given online.

The whole point of Nitschke's book is not that he wants suicide legalised (because it is already legal), or even, these days, that he wants voluntary euthanasia legalised, because he is now convinced that it would be under even tighter control from the legal and medical professions, with plenty of input from the church, than it is already. His aim now is to give people freedom of choice through developing a safe, non-messy, non-undignified, non-agonising, instantly lethal compound of common household ingredients that no government will ever be able to outlaw.

And one of his arguments is that when people know this is possible, they are that much more likely to choose to live, knowing they have the option if they decide to take it. Knowledge is power, and that is what Nitschke wants people to have.

I cannot recommend too strongly that people read all of his book, learn the facts, and understand properly what it is that he is actually arguing. It's very clear to me from her article that either Katrina George had either not understood the book, or had simply not read it.
Posted by Lucy Honeychurch, Friday, 13 May 2005 10:44:37 PM
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