Sylvia – This is not a question of the rights of the individual. It’s a question of society dealing with their mentally ill members. You say it’s a convenient way of avoiding the issue of individual rights. I say you provide a convenient way of avoiding the issue of mental illness. You say it’s a gross assumption to conclude that someone’s decision to end his or her life is a wrong one. I say it’s a sick and shallow society that allows its mentally ill to kill themselves. I also say that making this decision when one is mentally ill is not a decision at all.

First of all we have all the do-gooders throwing our mentally ill out on the streets using the same logic that Sylvia applies, i.e. they have right to live in society like anyone else. Of course the result of this is that these people have absolutely no help and as a consequence they kill themselves (and others) at an unprecedented rate, and make the lives of their families and the people who love them, hell. The Sylvia solution? Divest more of the responsibility by giving our blessing to them killing themselves. After all, it’s not really a problem if someone comes to the conclusion that his or her life is not worth living and so kills themselves. That’s just someone taking responsibility for his or her own life isn’t it?

Who would you want your mentally ill relative to meet in the depths of their despair – Sylvia or kalweb? No contest I reckon.

Brian,

As a human to human both of us in a way placed in privileged positions to do something effective to change this horrible escalating suicides in our country and the highest increase is fathers after family separation and our teenagers, I write this.

As a medical officer I have had about 5 men (fathers) suicide after forced family separation, and seen these people from single create a family and dearly loved their children, I have seen unsupported happy little ones go to withdrawn blackness or reactive aggression, they feel the fathers' pain. On numerous occasions, concerned about the reasonably foreseeable, I have tried to access government and private agencies for meaningful help, just lip service and referral to some other where same effect of nothing useful in the end.

One parent forcing family breakup, a fully setup well funded government and legal industry, which well oiled effective machine, is that seen to be the claws that grabbed and controlled and supported the brutality that affects about two out of three families participants. My assessment was these people whose duty was to provide effective care to the community acted as if emotionally dead and treated traumatized emotion with such acceptance.

Knowledge about suicide is only relevant for those who want to be dead but fear the process, some go to not caring how either, so car into tree... so officially fell asleep on the wheel (If they dont want to hurt the living left behind) or carbon monoxide leaving evidence of intent so... no blame to anyone living that can be criminally chargeable, but it should be and must be if this reasonably foreseen by acts of others.

The main causes that usually cause suicide and foreseeable to a reasonable common person... the big three factors Family stability= being take control of the family and remove one parent, Financial security = take control of and make income vulnerable to varying attack, and destruction of what was lovingly created = take control of all possessions and remove as and when.

Spectemur Agendo, let us be seen by our deeds

Sam

How about a compromise then?

A person with depression is provided with treatement for a sufficient time to establish whether or not the treatement is effective.

If it is not, then the person, during a period with they're not actually depressed, is given the opportunity to be euthanased, if that's their choice.

This puts on the spot those who claim that depression can be successfully treated. If they really believe this is true, then they should have no objection to the proposal, because no one would ever proceed with euthanasia.

Opposing this option amounts to saying that people, even when not depressed, should not be allowed to form a view about the overall value of their own lives.

The legislation discussed by Brian Harradine seeks to sweep the issue of depression under the carpet. It is not trying to reduce the amount of mental illness, and suffering. It is only trying to reduce one politically inconvenient manifestation of that suffering - the suicide rate. In the process is it punishing the victims.

Sylvia.

People who are determined to kill themselves will always find ways to do it. Brian Harradine's proposed legislation is just a finger in the dyke, while the water pours down all around him.
For centuries, suicide was so disapproved of, suicides could not be buried in consecrated ground, I doubt it stopped any of them.
Sometimes life becomes insupportable, for all sorts of reasons. Compassion, it seems to me, has many faces. Of course one of them is to try to help the suicidal to recapture their belief that life is worth living, another may be to understand that sometimes death can be preferable to life, particularly among the terminally ill. The fiesty determination of many of the elderly never to allow themselves to end up a dribbling, incontinent mess is surely completely understandable.
There is too much of a rush to judgement on these issues, Philip Nitschke strikes me as a compassionate man, as does Brian Harradine. Neither is right or wrong, life and death are far more complicated than that.

Unbelievable! Now the state sanctioning suicide is seen as "compassion"? Where do some people get off?! Have a bit of a rethink and follow this stupidity through to its logical conclusion.

Sylvia wants to set society onto a dangerous course. She seems to think that nothing can, or should, happen without the government being involved. So people should be able to go to their doctors for termination? Where does that stop? Your daughter gets dumped by her boyfriend - off she goes for a couple of weeks therapy, still no good, off to the gas chamber. I wonder if the victims family gets any say in this, or even gets notified that their mother, father, child etc is going to end their life? I'd say not - that would be infringing on their rights wouldn't it Sylvia?

"Compassion" - the word becomes an obscenity when used by Sylvia and her ilk.

At present, about 2,000 Australians will commit suicide each year (although that figure is probably underestimated), but of concern is the high rate of youth suicide, particularly amongst male youths, as that rate is in the top 1/3 of other comparable countries.

The Department of Health and Ageing gives an account of youth suicide at http://www.mentalhealth.gov.au/resources/nysps/causes.htm and makes the following conclusion:-

“Modern suicide research has led to the identification of some of the complexities and interrelationships between causes and risk factors for youth suicide. In doing so, it has shown clearly that finding solutions for the problem will not be easy.”

So it will not be easy. Says who? Says the Department of Health and Ageing, but other countries have a lower rate of youth suicide, and such a pessimistic and apathetic attitude shown by a government department may be a part of the problem.

Thankfully Senator Brian Harradine does have concerns regards the rates of suicide in Australia, as there appears to be many other people in government who do not, and eventually a pessimistic and apathetic attitude can have very serious consequences for the young.