Timothy Leary said in an interview (in the late stages of his life) that 'death is the last big tabboo'. I believe that our fear, and lack of understanding of death is what drives us to desperately preserve it at all costs, even at the expense of individual liberty.

We need to identify the real culprits who are responsible for needlessly bad deaths. Those who blame the religious right should ask themselves why they have won on this issue, but not abortion, divorce, gambling, Sunday trading, the teaching of evolutionary theory, etc., etc. A number of US and UK studies indicate that half the money that will ever be spent on an individual's health care is spent in the last six months of life (Richard Nicholson, editor of the Bulletin of Medical Ethics, in an article in the (London) Times Higher Education Supplement (6/10/06)). The billions of dollars involved can only be compared with the resources the Ancient Egyptians spent on tombs and grave goods for their deceased relatives, the difference being that the Egyptians actually believed that they were making their relatives better off in the afterlife. This flow of money must be a powerful incentive to "donate" to politicians to keep euthanasia illegal and to allow advance directives to be ignored.

Excellent point, Divergence. I hadn't considered that at all.

Of course, there is big money to be had right across the Health Care field. I have always understood that the strong (in health) and the powerful (in wealth) will always be able to CONTROL the weak and vulnerable by definition of their circumstances in life.

The Medical Treatment Act 1988 is a law which as far as I am aware has never had a charge taken to court because a Health Care Worker has refused to comply. We worry so much more about the living, eg reputations and relatives, than the dying themselves....and what can a dying person do? they're too busy putting all their energies into the dying process!!

Society needs to think more in terms of "Not taking a life, so much as Relieving Pain"....but then the sanctimonious "do gooders" would be unemployed by their thousands because their audience would have died sooner rather than later.

If those same "Right to Life" folk thought the "other side looking into gods face forever was so delightful" why do they fight so hard to stay on this earth..... What are they afraid of? that there is no fairy tale ending to their life spent on this earth preaching to others about how to live their lives and their deaths at the end.....

Until Governments give back control of law making to the secular citizens of Australia, the Pro Choice section of the community has a hard battle on their hands....It is very much a dictatorship currently where 30% of the population are telling 100% how they may be permitted to die.....slowly and painfully as the case may be, they just don't want to lose another customer (patient) or voter (citizen)....and of course, there is always the God factor....he gives life and takes life, but gives man absolute discretion with technology in between the two, to torture in many cases both physically and mentally.
Right to life believers, can't have a bob both ways.....They are responsible for the evil they cause with their interference, as well as the good.....Choice please!

Mary Walsh
www.yourchoiceindying.com

I don't see how you can generalise and say most peoples deaths are an indigity. What research can you back this statement up with? I think you are aflicted by the fear of death. Death for me will be a blessed release and not at all an idignity or struggle.
Too much rubbish is written about this subject. The facts are that people take their deaths into their own hands every day. They die as they wish to die. Soldiers, sea canooists, drug addicts, firemen, doctors, nurses, crocodile hunters, sky and sea divers, pharmacists, suicide bombers, gun owners, knot tiers, all die how and when they want to. It's the people who won't take risks that dither and dawdle over it and give death a bad name. Letting go just ain't easy for some. I'll miss being here. I'll miss sex and home cooking, and films and me mates and me family, and just hanging around being a nuisance, but when I feel rotton enough, like when I have the flu or recovering from surgery, letting go will be easy for me. I'll take on death when it comes because I have lived a rich life. Death is beautiful and she is waiting just around the corner.
Euthanasia is a word like pornography, used by some to cause anxiety. There no such thing as euthansia because the word is a generalisation. People choose death all the time in many circumstances. People put others to death all the time, but we don't discuss it, it happens like eating and breathing and no amount of agonising will stop it. The idea that politicians can pass laws to stop compassionate acts of love is ridiculous. However, we all know politics is a callous game for callous people. If the religious want to die painfully they can choose to. If people like me want to die painlessly we can. It's just a matter of choice. (I've left out being tortured to death by our allies and enemies-that is an idignity!.)

Barfenzie, I endorse everything you say.
Fear of the inevitable is absurd. I suggest people like you and me keep a brown snake, to hell with politicians.
You'll hope it then takes time to experience death instead of trying to avoid it.
fluff
PS well written article though.