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The Forum > Article Comments > Ending it ... > Comments

Ending it ... : Comments

By David Fisher, published 26/10/2009

A person who wishes to end his or her existence could be helped to do so in a suitable way if their wish is rational.

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JL Deland- no- wrong.

-Bringing in authoritarian government practices? Nice try.

Absolutely create a new job of doctor that specializes in euthanasia (or make it an optional part of the contract), who can be called in on demand.

Outside that, doctors should do their JOB, or at least provide a referral to someone who is properly suited to doing the job.
If they can't be bothered because of their personal beliefs, then it's only fair they be required to refund (and possibly further compensate) the patient to whom they wasted the time of.

Although I would go further and say they be subject to legal action, and hold onto their jobs until a doctor equally-or better qualified- who IS willing to do their whole job, asks for the position.

To say a doctor should be able to abuse their power and the rest of the population must be held hostage is bizarre.
Posted by King Hazza, Thursday, 29 October 2009 10:18:10 AM
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Suzie,and all
Let me say up front I agree with the right to die with dignity terminally ill diseases is one such example. I think one has to be careful about declaring that a 90 yo was depressed and hence ended it all.

Sadly it isn't always that clear.

Imagine, if your life has no meaning spouse dead and no other family, or they are rightly running their lives, no purpose,(meaningless) you are in regular pain ( old age is terminal, there is no pill that can restore your arthritis, bad heart etc.) and spend your day doing nothing but watching day TV. The idea of *just 'waiting for god' terrifies me*.

Who can say what or when constitutes a good time to die except the individual them selves. Old ages is relative.

I can think of valid circumstances for a 50 yo deciding they'd had enough.I can understand how to some the desire to go is appropriately constructed and in my mind valid.

Why should someone have to cut their throat so a young family member might find them like that? Why not calmly and with dignity in an appropriate place.?

I must admit if Or when I notice I am permanently and irrevocably lose what *I* consider my quality of life I sincerely hope I have the courage to end it, for both me AND my family.

Latest figures show that Lifeline get 50k calls a month on suicide.
Also the greatest killer of 30-40 year olds is.......suicide.

The questions this begs are:
What is going wrong with society that this is per head per capita become such an issue?

What can we do to fix/minumise this? Crisis intervention is only one string.

How about the bleeding obvious?

Look at the mess the world is in due to the exiting (failed) paradigm?

why?
Could there be a link?
Isn't it time for a new paradigm of looking at the issue, one that values the individual and their choice?
Posted by examinator, Thursday, 29 October 2009 11:39:04 AM
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The problem is King Hazza is that re: doctors doing their jobs, in the dissenting doctors own minds they are doing their jobs. That is preserving life and not harming their patients. I am by the way pro-choice. I can just get my head around what is going on in the non-conforming doctors brains. This being the case, Governments can bring in as much legislation as they like, it won't make the doctors tow the line. I don't think they should have to actually. Especially as until recently it was actually illegal to procure an abortion in Victoria. Imagine if the right wing takes charge, would it be okay to change it back again? If they change the rules re: euthanasia then many doctors will be in the same position.

What the State is doing re: referal clauses (and by the way you don't actually need a referral for an abortion in Victoria I believe) is passing the buck. The responsibility for providing proper health lies with them but they don't want to actually fund abortion clinics and properly advertise them, so they single out individuals (non complying doctors) and pretend to be promoting woman's health, by concentrating on them. It hasn't even been established that any women have actually missed out on abortion due to non-complying doctors in recent times anyway.

Finding doctors willing to be involved in euthanasia might be a more difficult problem but again, the responsibilty lies with the State.

Apology's if King Hazza is actually your name, but I suspect detect more than a touch of born to rule in your posts.

Sorry mate, but as one of the Monty Python generation even if some watery tart has bestowed a sword upon you somewhere along the way, I'm not a believer in the divine right to rule, and it doesn't make me anymore wrong than you, just different.
Posted by JL Deland, Thursday, 29 October 2009 12:17:17 PM
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Again, I don't see why it can't be decided on a municipality basis to what standards it doctors are held to (the amount of doctors to alternatively turn to if some end up being superstitious and selfish to deny their patients services), but I think it's being highly unreasonable to allow service-providers in authority to deny their services for personal reasons.

I reject the notion that people providing vital assistance in medicine reserve the right to behave as the marketing sector.

If they can't provide a referral they can refund their consultancy fee and compensate for the time wasted, at the very least.

There is no authoritarianism in this King, I might add- I'm one of the most democratically-minded people on the planet. And from that stance, the demos right to services trumps the right of middle-men to hold them hostage.

As for people willing to euthanize others- you'd be surprised how many people would participate- and no, they're not sadists- just people who most likely feel that letting terminally ill people die when they want instead of counting days in a bed with an IV feed is compassionate.
Posted by King Hazza, Friday, 30 October 2009 11:11:12 AM
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"I'm one of the most democratically-minded people on the planet". Thanks King Hazza, it's good to have that clarified. If though, your friends start following you around banging coconuts together (I hope you are up on your Monty Python) and making jokes about going on Crusade, you might think about tempering your style.

You see, to me from reading your posts, you come across as belonging to one of the extreme ends of the spectrum. At one end you have the fundies raising hell and harassing people outside clinics, who are absolutely sure that life begins at conception (and even before) and on the other end where possibly wrongly I'd place you, people who don't believe a foetus has any humanity until it is of age to breath independently outside of the womb.

In between these two extremes you have people like me whose position is simply 'well buggered if I know'. That being our position, we support both the right of a woman to have a abortion if she requests one, but we also can understand that for some people being forced to participate in a termination even in any small way, is paramount to assisting in a murder.

That's why it should be put back on the State to negotiate a way through the sensitivities and make sure both views are catered for. That means building clinics and actually advertising them. Can you ever see though a Government putting to air a TV advertisment, no matter how airbrushed that actually tells women where clinics are, and that they don't need a referral? Such an ad would be very useful, but won't happen because it's not a vote winner.

I also don't see it as a issue with some people suffering from superstition. Some people might blindly take their religion's position on it, I suspect most though have done some hard thinking. It's more about philosophy than superstition. It is possible to be an aethiest and believe that human life begins at conception. I don't think to such questions to which there are any real correct answers
Posted by JL Deland, Friday, 30 October 2009 4:00:36 PM
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Plus people like me see the fairness issue. There is probably not one single qualified doctor out there who saw this on the horizon when they qualified. If they had, those with a problem with abortion could have chosen another career. They are stuck with it now, and some probably with a huge HECS debt.

This discussion isn't to far off topic because if euthanasia is legalised, then the policy makers need to get going now. Unlike most women seeking a termination who mostly will be able to move about in the community and seek out the service, terminally ill patients may well be to fragile to do so without help. Clearly a conscience clause won't work to make medical staff comply, so perhaps they should be looking at offering incentives, say reductions in HEC's for people from a range of fields to work in the area for a number of years.

For the record I come from a medical family. I haven't discussed it with the family's medicos, but I can't imagine the medicos in my family having any problem with either abortion on demand or euthanasia, though I might be wrong, and apologies to any of them if so. My problem is not with abortion or euthanasia, it's making sure that the rights of those with a moral contary view are respected.

Well done by the way. You haven't brought the hypothetical rape victim into it seeking help from the heartless doctor which I've usually encountered by now. For the record again, I think any doctor with a problem with abortion, who doesn't at least refer patient on to a Rape Crisis centre, should be reported.

However I'd like to raise a few of my own hypothetical cases just to stir the pot a bit and see if you still see things in black and white.

TBC in 24 hours.
Posted by JL Deland, Friday, 30 October 2009 4:05:05 PM
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