As Arjay said, any reasonably determined person can get all the information they want on how to commit suicide from the internet. This is really aimed at Philip Nitschke's seminars, which contain elderly people, not depressed teenagers. Brian Harradine has religious reasons for his position, but many of the people who will support him don't. In New South Wales and possibly in some other states people are not allowed to write a legally binding advance directive (to refuse life prolongong treatment), even though there are no religious objections. We need to "cherchez le loot" as someone wrote on another discussion.

A third to a half of all the money that will ever be spent on an individual's health care is spent on average in the last two years of life. As the health care system becomes increasing privatised more and more of this money will come out of the person's house and other assets after the insurance is exhausted. Your terminal cancer care may mean destitution for your family. One study of terminal patients in the US found that this is what happened a third of the time. If it were made easy for such people to kill themselves or just refuse treatment, then all that lovely money would go to the family, friends and favourite causes of the deceased, rather than the hospitals, medical specialists, pathology labs, pharmaceutical companies, etc.

Yes Sylvia – all very logical, cold-hearted and clinical. But unfortunately, we’re not going to get past that issue. It is never OK for the mentally ill to kill themselves. It is sad and it is a tragedy for society and the families involved. We’re talking about people, not sick pets. You’re treating this subject as an exercise in logic whereas I’d be more inclined to treat it as one in the way we deal with the disadvantaged in our society.

Your argument seems to be that if someone wishes to end their life they should be able to. Hard to argue against from the point of individual rights. But you disregard any factors of love and humanity. You disregard the right to protect your child, the right to a mother and father, sister or brother, and the right to have a future. You may view these things as being beside the point or as being “value judgments” not worthy of consideration. But they are not beside the point – they are the whole point and they should be the primary consideration.

Divergence – why must everything come back to money? Why should the very sick be made to feel very guilty as well? If my kids can’t stand on their own two feet by the time I’m ready to kick off then anything I leave them isn’t going to help much. So what if most of the health money is spent on ones last few years of life? They’ve been paying for those last few years during the well part of their lives.

Do we really want to go down the path of the Netherlands where the elderly walk around with cards in their wallets saying “Do not euthanise” in case they have to go to hospital, where over 60% of all assisted killings are done without the knowledge or consent of the person being killed, or where doctors are given the right of life or death over babies and the elderly with no permission required by parents, family, or the victims themselves? Talk about hell on earth.

I have extreme difficulty in accepting that young people have the "right" to make a "rational" decision with regard to suicide as their only perceived version of problem solving - to escape from what they regard in an unsolveable situation.

It has been my experience that young people (I am speaking of young adolescents, middle adolescents, and young adults) have not adequately thought through issues (not because they are not bright enough - but because they have not lived long enough to have developed sophisticated problem solving skills)before attempting suicide (yes, and repeated self harming behaviours is another issue). It has been my experience that young people who have unsuccesfully attempted suicide have acted upon impulse rather than a calculated plan - and this has often been accompanied by concommitant drug or alcohol use and dysfunctional family relationships (no matter their social "class" or intelligence).

Suicide is not a one person event. Completed suicide usually dramatically effects the lives of at least 12 other people.

I am glad that I have nursed so many young people who have been suicidal and who are alive and well today to tell their story of recovery - because they had appropriate intervention which was given in a loving and caring way. People can get better - and people do get better.

Sure, some people do not get better and they do successfully kill themselves. That does not mean that we should stop trying to offer others a helping hand along life's often very difficult pathway.

Bozzie

You comments misrepresent my attitude towards value judgements.

"You may view these things as being beside the point or as being “value judgments” not worthy of consideration."

This issue is almost entirely about value judgements. Without them we can form no conclusions at all on the subject of suicide. The question is how do we deal with the fact that different people form different value judgements. In particular, how do we handle the difference between the value judgement formed by the individual who may decide to commit suicide, and the value judgements *about the same life* formed by others.

To say that it is never acceptable to allow a mentally ill person to kill themselves is simply prejudging the issue. If you start with that as a premise, you will inevitably have it, possibly expressed in a different form, as a conclusion. It's really just another value judgement.

It is a personal rights issue. Just because a person suffers from a mental illness does not necessarily mean they're no longer competent to make decisions. The decision to commit suicide on the part of a person suffering periodic depression will only become irrational on the day that medical science offers a cure for that person - at least at the level of symptomatic relief. As yet, medicine doesn't always do that.

By disallowing suicide as an option, we're saying that the person with chronic periodic depression must simply endure it. History is full of examples of practices that were thought proper by the societies of the time, but which from our more enlightened times seem abhorent. Our descendants may look back at our attitudes to euthanasia, and shake their heads in disbelief that we could be so cruel.

Sylvia.

Sylvia – Someone forming a value judgment that their life is worthless when that judgment is arrived at from a position of mental illness is hardly a true value judgment. You say that people suffering from depression, to the extent that they are prepared to take their own life, are still capable of rationality. True – but the very act of suicide is an act of irrationality. Today’s value judgment is tomorrows “what was I thinking?”

The question as to whether one has the right to suicide has long been answered. There is no law against suicide. Nor should there be. The question is whether laws should be enacted that allow others to actively participate in this death. This is the slippery slope that I’m worried about. Where does it end? The very act of offering a person the option of suicide would tend to confirm their opinion that life is not worth living. Government has no business offering this option to their citizens. The very presence of death fetishists like Nitschke show the real dangers that would be faced by depressed persons thrown to the mercy of our money starved medical professionals. Oh well – at least the crisis in mental health in this country would be over pretty quickly.

It is perfectly feasible to have protections in place. It would clearly be inappropriate for someone to be able to go to a 24 hour bulk billing surgery, and be euthanased on the spot.

But where a person is afflicted by an illness that is causing them prolonged suffering, and the person does not want to continue to live, then it's time for society either to put up, or shut up. In this context, "put up" means to provide a solution, either in terms of a cure, or symptomatic relief. Once society has failed to do that, it has lost any moral right to have a say over the person's conduct in respect of their own life.

One should beware of people acting out of good intentions, because they can cause considerable harm. It's true that in practice the government will not be able to prevent access to information on suicide over the Internet. This is just as well. If people are denied access to reliable methods, they will use unreliable ones. Throwing oneself off a tall building, or wrapping one's car around a tree is all very well, if it works. Not so good if one ends up having quadraplegia to contend with as well as one's other problems. Particuarly in a society that considers that life as a quadriplegic is better than death, even if the person themselves considers otherwise.

Sylvia.