Religion, that's when you surrender all responsibility for your own life and decisions but assume the responsibilty for everyone elses.

As I recall, Jesus Himself didn't suffer the full torture of crucifixion because (as the story goes), his legs were broken to speed up asphyxiation and he was speared in the side.

Under the circumstances, was this an act of mercy and compassion?

If that wasn't euthanasia, I don't know what is.

Australians are a resourceful lot and thanks to Doctors with the courage and humanitarian conviction of Phillip Nitschke,we are exposing more of the fanatical pro-life ratbags.
Once one has rejected pie in the sky and come to terms with one's mortality,understanding the act of dying becomes much more a part of living.
Good onya Doctor Phillip Nitschke

Rache,
perhaps you should grab a copy of the Bible and read the part that concerns the death of Jesus on the cross again. It was the two criminals on crosses each side of him who had their legs broken to hasten their deaths. Jesus appeared to already be dead, so one of the Roman soldiers thrust his spear into his side to make sure their deed was done.
On a personal level, I don't believe politics and religion are a good mix and don't hold any hope that this union between State and Church will come to an end in the short term. Australian voters are both lazy and gullible. Many don't take any notice of politics until it comes time to vote, then they continue to vote for the same old faces with their same tired old ideas because they're too lazy to think outside the square. Over the last several years, political figures with a religious bent have been slowly making themselves dangerously prominent and religious ferver is slowly enslaving the Australian voting landscape. We don't need the likes of Kevin Andrews or the Australian First party forcing their dogma down our throats, but sadly I feel nothing will change at the next election. Good on Dr. Nitschke for attempting to remove the blindfolds from people's eyes, but I fear the voting public still has a long way to go.

When Drion proposed his ficticious pill 10 years ago it was warmly welcomed by the elderly community.

It was the middle generations to whom death is a more remote concept that were dead against it.

We all die, we can make dieing a brief humane process or we can all suffer.

I think the "right to die" is a big misnomer, we all die and so have a right to it.

It should be "duty to live". The real question is do we have a duty to live and if so for how long.

Gusi,

I think it is more about the ability to die with dignity, not rights or duties.

I am dieing of incurable cancer, not speculation an inescapeable fact. I will die within a few years most likely before I turn 55, when I decide that my life is no longer worth living I hope someone will help me go.

I do not need Kevin Andrews or his fellow travellers (most of the cabinet) telling me how to end my wonderful life.

Not everyone can cope with the death of loved ones. For some it makes them feel so nervous that they prefer to eschew its reality and punish themselves by denying their own loss.

Grieving is necessary but disliked by this age. Too rarely does one see a wailing woman at a funeral. All is nicely clinicalised.

Until, that is, one realises that life is more than a mere duty, a mere preface before an anticipated expiry date. We are the light of the world. Do not be afraid of the future. This is a cultural apostasy, that comes from our media's fixation with present-centred things, such as luck and money.

Fix your gaze instead upon the eternal life which Jesus promises to us. Only then can you be freed to remain with those you love in their difficulty. Become a Catholic, and partake of the sacraments of reconciliation and Eucharist.

Only then can you fully rest in God, knowing that you belong here and now, and look to participate in his promise to us. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, and at the end of time he will return to take us all with him, raising up our bodies in perfect form, to be reunited with our souls.

The human body is not divided between soul and matter. Our souls inhabit this very flesh we breathe from, and therefore we must treat our bodies as we would a sacred temple of God.