PS: Suze, I remember that quack who dropped by after lunch, after I had waited for treatment at the 'other' hospital since early morning to get those painful six 25-day-old foreign country stitches removed, and how he demonstrated the procedure to his valued med-student, twice, and left me to rot or pull the other four out myself.

I can imagine his lesson-plan if euthanasia was legal. "Okay Winston, now I will demonstrate the procedure of euthanasia, so please get your eyes off the nurses and close your mouth and pay attention to this while I kill the patient with the six stitches in his abdomen - I will not repeat this technique twice, so watch closely!"

Suze, it might be best we leave that 'grey' area and don't legalise euthanasia while the lunartics are running the asylums.

That's all. Good night and thank you all for today's discussions.

Thanks to everyone for all your inputs.

I came across a letter in The Age, Saturday,
October 31st, 2009, written by Dr Rodney
Syme and Judith Hoy Jones, from the
"Dying with Dignity," organisation.

Here's a part of it:

"...Dying With Dignity Victoria supports
palliative care, and does not claim that
a dignified death will occur only through
voluntary euthanasia. For some who find
no relief from suffering through palliative
care, physician-assisted dying can provide
a "good death."

By taking a general "swipe and gripe" at
right-to-life and dying with dignity
groups, Professor Megan-Jane Johnstone
evidenced a poor understanding of what most
Australian dying-with-dignity societies are
working towards. Her report did little to
contribute to the necessary debate about
the ability or inability of individuals
to make rational choices about their own end
of life."

As we can see this issue needs to be brought
out into the open and discussed publicly.
Questions need to be asked...

Palliative care undoubtedly can help very many
people to a good death. But what about the ones
who have very painful deaths?

If the population takes a stand, the laws will
come.

When they told my father he was dying and there was no hope they killed him right there and then. Then they kept him alive so he could lose all his dignity and self respect. He tried to go to the toilet by himself because he could not bear for his daughter to take him. I found him in a heap on the floor.

Dear Missus,

I'm so sorry about your father.

Cases like yours are the reasons why the
time has come for a full debate on the issue.

This message needs to be sent to the politicians
and lawmakers.

When my dad passed away, myself, my bother and sister had to make what was for me the toughest decision ever, and that was to allow the machine that was keeping him alive to be turned off.

Now we were told by the doctor that once the machine was turned off that he would pass. And he did, very peacefully and with my mother beside him.

Although I am in favour of allowing someone to end their life, I can honnestly say that I don't really know how I would have acted if he was able to have asked me to turn the machine off.

To this day, my mum does not know that I agreed to have the machine turned off and I would suggest that she would have stayed by his side for days, perhaps weeks if he had been allowed to continue living on life support.

This is a very complicated and delicate subject.

Dear Rehctub,

My mother did stay by her husband (my step-father)
for months, until the day he died. He was in
severe pain, and it wasn't with peace and dignity.
He deteriorated to an unrecognisable state in
front of our eyes and suffered dreadfully.