Majella, you can kill yourself very efficiently indeed without Dr Nitschke's help. Most people who suicide manage to do so with no outside involvement. An overdose of paracetamol, for example, is exceptionally effective, so long as you don't let anyone know you've done it until the liver damage is irreversible. (Gosh, could I be prosecuted for writing that?) Will we now see Mr Cook produce a searing expose of Woolworths' role in assisting suicide? It would make about as much sense as the rest of his witterings. What you and Cook seem to most object to is Nitschke's openness and his disavowal of the moral tenets you propound. Cracks in the Christian social edifice, eh? Can't have that. Let's paper over them with legislation.

I wonder about the validity of the desire for 'dignity' based around independance and ability. If an infirmed person's 'dignity' is destroyed by their infirmity, then the idea that dignity lies in how we react to difficulty has been unfortunately ousted. Where is the dignity in disability, when an able person who is sick looses theirs so quickly?

Another victory of lifestyle over life?

Euthanasia and suicide are not the same thing. Suicide is when you kill yourself. Euthanasia is when, for quality of life issues, someone else kills you or helps you kill yourself at your request (voluntary) or without a request but they think it's best (involuntary). That’s why it’s sometimes called “assisted suicide”. It’s not illegal to kill yourself. But it’s illegal for other people to kill you or to help you kill yourself. It’s illegal to encourage other people to kill themselves. I think that’s the way it should be. Otherwise consent would have to be an absolute defence to murder/manslaughter, instead of just being (as it is now) a potential mitigating factor.

I think the operation of the new laws to prevent discussion of euthanasia is not so desirable (and I mean discussion rather than encouragement). Surely, by careful definition, the desired application of the laws could have been brought about and I understand the desired application was to really about preventing suicide cults on the Internet encouraging young people to kill themselves. I would be interested to know if posters think it is okay to encourage old people to kill themselves but not young people. Do we value old people less? Or do we value old people more and say that they have a greater capacity for decision making so it’s okay for old people to decide to die but not young people?

Magella.

I take issue with your comment about cheap one line shots and your assertion that Dr. Nitschke is selling suicide.

Of the 2,500 suicides in Australia the majority are by hanging, next is overdose on prescription drugs. How many single vehicle accidents are really suicide but are not added to the statistics? If people want to commit suicide there are many web sites to tell them how, it is not illegal to view this information just illegal to pass on the knowledge to someone else. Maybe Google should be prosected.

With Mr Cook’s article we all know his agenda; he is bound by his membership of Opus Dei to follow the views of the Catholic Church.

I have terminal cancer and therefore euthanasia is a subject I have had to think about in more that bioethical terms.

There are questions like “when is life no longer worth living”? A difficult question that I have had to address and I have not come to a conclusion yet.

But being confined to bed in an opiate induced stupor, being fed through a tube and having someone wipe my ass is not a life worth living. But of course I can always ask my Doctor to end it with a terminal opiate injection and the majority will oblige.

Cook’s article is a cheap shot at Dr. Nitschke his only remedy to a complex problem is good palliative care, sounds good in theory, he really means good hospice care. Palliative care is treating symptoms like honey and lemon for a sore throat. He can’t even get his terminology correct.

My niece committed suicide five weeks ago; she was depressed sought help and was dismissed by our Mental Health system. If the government and Cooks of this world really want to help lobby against suicide they would do better to get better mental health services.

There will come a time when you have to have this discussion with yourself, as I have, you will find that religion has no place in your deliberations.

Veryself, you are either very cruel or very ignorant, nothing could be further from the truth than what you posted about paracetamol as an effective method of suicide. Its harder to think of a more painful, slow or ineffective choice.

The Paracetemol Information Centre states " A fatal overdose of paracetamol, no matter how large, is unlikely to bring about death in under five days, at least some of which are likely to be spent in hospital." http://www.pharmweb.net/pwmirror/pwy/paracetamol/pharmwebpicjournalist.html

Let's go for cruel, AndrewM. 'Effective' simply means 'it works'. I don't recall advocating suicide by paracetamol overdose, or suggesting it was other than inadvisable, painful and slow. My point was simply that the means of committing suicide are readily available, and don't require the intervention of another, or access to a website. Which renders the pontifications of the likes of Mr Cook otiose at best.