Thank you to Brian for this intelligent and compassionate piece.

The Nitschke approach doesn't support freedom - it's simply an easy way to end one's autonomy all together.

Brian is spot on when he notes that "dignity comes from knowing that whatever your health and your personal shortcomings, there are people there who will love and support you, no matter what".

Coming from a family with a strong disposition towards depression, I find it offensive that there are some who seriously think part of the solution is to offer depressed patients the option of death.

Having battled it myself, I am glad that a limelight-seeking anti-doctor like Nitschke wasn't offering me advice

Thanks for this compassionate and sensible article. Three students from my high school year have since killed themselves, and last year my friend killed herself and her 3-year-old daughter with a knife. Mental illness, despair, abandonment, and abuse all characterised their lives. I feel a great deal of guilt for not having done more to help them. Imagine my burden of guilt if I had encouraged and even facilitated their deaths, apparently respecting their autonomy.

A right to life and a right to death.
People should have the right to live their life they way they want to.
People should also be able to end their life when and how they whish.
For most cultures in the world including out own suicide is a valid option for many situations and should not been denigrated by religious fanaticism.
What is worse a painless exist and a painful violent exist.

klw,

I've commented to you before about my objection to ad hominem attacks. You apparently didn't recognise the term. It means 'to the man', and describes the practice of playing the man rather than the ball. In the context of this debate, it's a reference to the way you're trying to devalue my responses by suggesting that I'm the sufferring from a distorted world view - "get a life".

You've also managed to construct another strawman, by suggesting that my postings elsewhere (that others here may be unaware of) reflect some sort of valuation of men, presumably one you yourself do not hold.

These are both standard techniques used to stifle debate. By all means disgree with my reasoning, or my views, but leave me out of it. Stick to the subject at hand.

Sylvia.

Sylvia - I still do not have any idea about hom and straw. I have never heard these terms until we met. I don't have a clue what you are talking about - but I sense as strong egocentric academic bit of bulldust.

I think your recent article was extremely useful - created great debate. Well done.

Kalweb,

The 'ad hominem' argument is straightfoward enough. Imagine that I say that two plus two equals five. There are then two possible approaches to arguing with me. You could debate the issue, by pointing out that the axioms of arithmetic lead inescapably to the conclusion that I am mistaken. Or you could debate the man, or in my case, woman, by alleging that I got bad marks for maths at school, and therefore my opinions on arithmetic are worthless. Alternatively, you could try claiming that I beat children for fun, and that as such my morals are so low that no one should even consider listening to my opinions on anything, let alone arithmetic.

The thing about the ad hominem approach is that you might equally well use it if I had said that two plus two equals four. It's particularly well suited where you're more interested in 'winning' the argument, than in getting at the truth.

The 'strawman' arguement is a bit more subtle, and is useful if I'm presenting a view that might lead to some definite action, say a government policy, or legislation, which you don't like. What you do is misrepresent my position - typically by oversimplifying it. Then you can attack me on the basis that this 'strawman' argument is flawed. If people fail to notice that you've misrepresented my views, then they may decide they disagree with me, and never look at my position closely enough to recognise its validity.

You'll see both ad hominem and strawman arguments used frequently in politics.

Sylvia.