Philip Nitschke is running for election as an Independent Candidate in my electorate. He is pro euthanasia. He believes that doctors should be authorised to assist people in physical and mental distress to die.

What do the rest of you think?

This might seem unusual from me.. a 'conservative evangelical protestant' but if a person has made their peace with the Almighty, is convinced on sound medical advice that they are going to soon be 'gathered to their fathers'.... then to assist them with pain relief, and at their request help them along the road doesnt seem such a bad thing.

Phil 1:21ff
>>For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.<<

Moses was told "Go up to the mountain, there you will die" after his earthly work had been completed.

Pauls words seem to suggest 'choice' in the matter. I don't have any idea what he meant about the means of 'departing' to be with Christ, but I'll err on the side of caution and suggest it might have been not worrying about being martyred.

In terms of the question "Do the terminally ill have the RIGHT.....to death"... well again this raises the issue of "where to 'rights' come from" in contrast to 'privileges' based on the powers to be.

There is no such 'right' for anything (outside of God) unless we actually have a 100% consensus on it.... but I highly doubt there would ever be 'consensus' on such a controversial issue. Even a consensus would only last until the next generation decided they didn't like the idea.

Its a hard question. One thing I do know and am assured about. Put the option of 'killing' the terminally ill in the hands of moral relativists and/or atheists, and the issue could go off in any 'interesting' direction.

"Lets improve the human race by cloning"...err..yeah...right.
"Lets improve the human race by KILLING weak and burdensome"...yep.. not that far away eh?

Dear BD,

Thanks for your comments. I watched the interview of Philip
Nitschke on Andrew Denton (Monday evening) and I found it rather disturbing, to say the least. I had presumed that this man (doctor) was for helping the terminally ill to end their lives. However he was talking about 18 year olds as well who wanted to die - which troubled me greatly.
So now I'm having a re-think about the whole issue. My girlfriends' mother died of cancer - and watching her mum suffer for so long was heart wrenching. But as I sad after watching Nitschke's interview on Monday night - I'm not quite as sure about things as I was earlier.

Foxy, I tend to see the debate as more about making safe, clean mechanism's available to those who medicine is no longer able to help.

Many people in such a situation take their own lives and because we don't provide clean ways of doing it close relatives/passers by/emergency services workers are left to find the bodies and deal with the emotional impacts of that.

Others who no longer have the physical capacity to end their own lives are left to linger on until their medically assisted bodies finally give up.

There is some truth in the idea that medically assisted suicide opens up a can of worms hinted at by Boazy.

What about people who lack the mental capacity to make the decision?
What about those who may be given wrong advice by medical people or who face pressure from relatives to end it because the rellies can't cope any longer?

I guess given the history of people of Boazy's ilk (and I don't use the Scottish clansman meaning ;) ) to always make perfect ethical and moral decisions based on their ever so perfect interpretations of the bible we can be sure that there will never be any bad calls from them, as for the rest of us we will have to tread carefully trying to find a balance between compassion and safeguards.

R0bert

Dear RObert,

What you say is so valid. I thought that to help terminally ill people end their lives was a compassionate and obvious humanitarian thing to do. But it's a far more complicated issue then I'd realized.
Especially when you carry (religious) baggage with you - as I admit I do. And as I said, after watching Nitschke on TV Monday night - I'm even more uncertain about what I'd do - if a decision had to be made concerning a family member.

Foxy, "Especially when you carry (religious) baggage with you - as I admit I do." - my impression is that you are thoughtful regarding your religious baggage.

We all come with the baggage of some kind of belief/non belief system (or a mixture). Some carry it with care, checking on the contents from time to time and trying to ensure that the contents are still relevant, others have tossed away the keys to the bags and stomp through life bludgening others with their baggage.

Those in the former category pose little threat to others.

I stuggle with this issue, I'd have no qualms if someone close was in terrible main with no valid hope of remission wanted to end their life. I'm undecided about other forms of assisted suicide but I don't like the consequences of the current approach which leaves innocents to deal with the consequences. There are few perfect answers in life.

R0bert