I'm afraid we Aussies don't have a particularly good record in terms of caring for our aged ? Sure those who have sufficient resources to sell the family home, down size and buy into a graduated care facility, they're all OK, more or less ? Particularly those with strong family links.

Something my years as a copper have shown me over time, is how many of our indigent aged we have living and dying on the streets of inner Sydney ? Or in some neglected, squalid rooming house where most of their pension is 'stripped' from them by lousy landlords ?

Most of these poor buggers suffer from mental illness, or other anti-social affliction. Many of them, both men and women through circumstances beyond them, lack personal hygiene and tend to emit or exude strong odours of alcohol, excessive smoking and of course body odour ? Consequently, most members of the pubic recoil and hurry away, if and when they're ever approached by any these people, most only seeking money for strong drink, more often by straight-out begging, formerly a street offence ?

Point is, some of Australia's (young) homeless people, are only in those circumstances, exclusively by their own choice, for a variety of reasons ? Many refuse to comply with normal discipline in the home, truancy from school, assaulting one or more of their parents, disruptive and aggressive behaviour etc. etc. ?

But our indigent senior's rarely have a choice, though admittedly there are exceptions ? They're simply abandoned, and it's only the Christian Churches who seem to offer regular help in some material way...AND...if I may also add, the coppers too ! I don't care how hard hearted the average copper is, or how immune they may be at constantly witnessing the daily parade of human detritus ? Most find it a pretty sorry sight observing many of these lonely deserted old buggers, laying around often in their own filth - totally abandoned.

What's that famous maxim ? '...But for the grace of God go I...' ?

In her last few months my mother could no longer stand or walk at all, & had to go into a nursing home. Although it was an excellent facility, with really caring staff she hated it. It was not her granny flat, her home of over 20 years.

To try to help her I tried to get in there every week day, if only for 15 minutes or so. I left the weekends to the grand kids.

It highlighted how many are abandoned when the receptionist said one Friday, "you've been here every day haven't you", in obvious amazement.

We do need to fix the euthanasia laws in Oz. She just wanted out of there, permanently. If she had been at home I may have tried something, but I & she had lost control at that stage.

Unless we fix them, I expect I will become another single vehicle car crash fatality. I wonder how many actually go that way.

platypus1900, "my emphasis is duty and love for our aged parents...to look after them in the sunset of their lives"

Yes, agreed and we must also have regard for the community of which we are part. The 'care' of far too many people requires that the State and taxpayers support their kin (and likely themselves) while they do squat but proffer advice and false sentiment.

Support the rights of an innocent unborn human child.

I see no way around the practical necessity of legal abortion. However, the number of terminations overall, and the unexpected, unresearched and unexplained high number of terminations of healthy foetuses of women during their best fertile years, are very concerning.

Government reports say that young couples are not having the children they expected and planned to have. They simply cannot afford children and time slips away. The high taxes to provide the infrastructure and support for excessive migrant intakes ('Big Australia') result in our own young couples not being to have the children they worked for.

It is most regrettable that government consistently fails to address this persistent problem that could explain why there are so many abortions affecting a cohort where every forecast prior (to universally available terminations) did not imagine that possibility.

Young couples in their peak fertile years are bearing too great a load to support a 'Big Australia' that the public doesn't even want and would vote against.

@hasbeen

you are doing well for your mother
and i know you will continue to do well

dont go the way of euthanasia
that is an easy way out... it opens a pandora box to many more issues

i wish you well in looking after your mother
and i know your children will likewise look after you well

@otb

"practical legal abortion" sounds good
the correct phrase is
"convenient legally accepted murder of one's unborn child"

when we got married, we never had the problem of unwanted children
we took responsible family planning precautions
we decided if there was to be an accident, the child will be born in love... it is our child and the 'accident' wasnt the unborn baby's.

we can continue to give reasons and new terms.... at the end of the day , it is murder pure and simple
decisions such as this cannot be farmed out to the parliamentarians

thank you

Platypus1900 "we can continue to give reasons and new terms.... at the end of the day , it is murder pure and simple
decisions such as this cannot be farmed out to the parliamentarians"

Really?
Who should the decision be 'farmed out to' then Platypus?
Religions?
Men?
You?

Surely the only ones who should be making this decision are the parents and their doctor.

Hi there HASBEEN...

I'm sorry for not responding sooner to the dilemma concerning the unhappy circumstances with which your dear Mum finds herself ? This is despite the frequency of your visits and her grandchildren visiting her each weekend. ?

It's tough when we get older, often we consider ourselves an imposition on the rest of the family, this is despite their reassurance to the contrary ? Still, despite the fact that many important and influential people support mercy killing, especially at the (considered) behest of the patient, it's a bit like capital punishment, make an error and it's irreversible ? Should the patient have a change of mind, circumstances change, or in the case of terminal illness, a cure appears just over the horizon, then it's all too late ?

I realise, many would not agree with me, but that's OK, after all it's just a personal opinion nothing more. But HASBEEN, I do feel very sorry for you personally, and your dear Mum in fact your entire family, because important decisions, with what we do with our much loved, but aged family members, is never easy, and someone always ends up getting hurt ?