Spare me Greg Barns. You have done it again. What a preposterous article.

Euthanasia and suicide are not synonymous. Euthanasia is mercy, or assisted death. Suicide is self murder.

Assisted death has been around ever since I started nursing in 1971 (and no doubt before). People were taken off machines so that they could die with dignity. People were not rescucitated so that they could die with dignity. Families and patients - as much as was possible, were engaged in the decision making.

My father was 52 years of age when he died from intractible terminal kidney cancer. He died with dignity in his home with the nursing care of my mother, myself, and a night nursing agency. I made sure he was high as a kite on pethidine for his exit - and I did not overdose him. He talked until his last two hours and then quitely went to sleep with my mother by his side. He was not in pain, not incontinent, and did not have a bed sore - despite many months in bed.

Are you trying to tell me that Dr N's suicide plastic bag kit for suffocation is going to provide a dignified death? Give me a break.

We have an extremely high clinical depression and suicide rate for young people in this country. They are fragile and vulnerable. I have nursed them. They are impuslive and very much influenced by the internet. Would you want your clinically depressed adolescent going to a web site to get a recipe for the best method of suicide? See comment from Realist.

Have you experienced suicide in your family? I have. It has torn our family apart for some 13 years.

My husband will nurse me at home if necessary, and I will nurse him if necessary, and we will both nurse my 78 years old mother if ever necessary. We will take responsibility to ensure that we all die with dignity without killing ourselves or each other.

Kay

Suicide illegal my God!It should be compulsery for some people.Does this mean J.H. will be here forever?jeez luise that means I will have to top myself first.I mean J.H. wouldn't do anything illegal would he?.

PHILB Love your humour . No mate he would not do anything wrong. He just made it his QUIET business to self regulate the Live Animal Export people three weeks after he was elected..He was what some people would call a good poly right back even then. He saw LEGAL problems for his MATES that donate to his party with their blood money and stealing Australians jobs so he FIXED!! it. No hes a real legal bloke .I dont think little JH would ever consider suicide at any rate. To think about ending your life takes guts if your ill or not. He has never done one thing off his own back. Perhaps he will ring his old mate Bush if the time ever comes for him to seek permishion. That does not mean i am against us standing up for the U .S. After all we would have been gone if not for them in the last war. However having watched this man and whom he follows shows little of the type of leadership and personal judgment we would hope for. Cant you just imagine little JH and his old mate Bush sipping brandy over the latest free listed Goverment drugs.[smile]

Greg,if you are really determined to die ,you don't need the internet to show you how.

The Govt is just trying to stop a lot of impressionable youngsters from committing suicide and this has nothing to do with your rights to end the pain.

Anyone who reaches the point of life's negative balance sheet have all manner of exits.Try jumping off a cliff.

Kay,
you say assisted death has been around a long time and I assume you witnessed people not resuscitated and machines being switched off 'so people could die 'with dignity'when you were nursing.

You were also very judgmental of Dr Nietzke.
His plastic bag was an option. He had other less traumatic options which were declared illegal. What is different between your assistance and Dr Nietzke's ?

I can tell you... He only offered assistance when it was asked for by terminally ill people who wanted the option to pass away without pain at a time of their own choosing. When they could say their goodbyes to their loved ones and save them the trauma of waiting around for the inevitable and suffering the indignity of dying helplessly, incontinent.

The orderly ,legal situation which prevailed in the N.T before the disgraceful intervention of Kevin Andrews was destroyed through the bloody mindedness of the political Right.

They did not stop suicide. When a person is determined to end their life they do so. Often it is violent.They die alone and their family doesn't cease to grieve. I believe some do it to punish their family.."you'll be sorry when I'm dead." as misguided as that might be. At least that is what I concluded when my 37 year old daughter, mother of three died in her car with the motor running in the garage on her 14th wedding anniversary almost 10 years ago.

This law will remain as an impediment to the very people assisted death was meant to help.
The reasons for teenage suicide need to be properly assessed and perhaps the causes of stress and pressure to achieve need to be addressed

Why thank you Wendy.You have saved me,I will now wait until after the next election.If J.H. is returned to power my whole family will commit suicide,and baby's that even have been born yet will commit suicide.My dog cat,and budge will commit suicide.Its odds on Peter Costello will commit suicide.Amanda Vandstone?No she already looks dead.Tony Abbot will think about it,renig, and go back to priest training.Kimbo will starve himself to death,this will take about three years.Alexander will have the gay community commit suicide for him by proxy.I should imagine whole suburbs will commit suicide.But fear not,the nightmare of this mob of social mis-fits will soon be gone ,and a new dawn will touch us all.Even the right wing loony fringe that believes the earth is flat will awaken out of their coma.