Okay I have to ask. Not to derail the thread myself. But does Leoj ever get a fact right? Perhaps accidentally?

Dear Zeil,

Not often. And, when he does I get so pleasantly
surprised that I immediately try talking rationally
to him only to be
knocked back down, time after time.

Hi there FOXY...

It sounds like your Mum is being well careed for, both by her residential carers, and by your love and attendance. For some who don't have that choice through economic circumstances, or some other reason, facing their own mortality becomes very much a big issue in their lives. That old hackneyed phrase, 'the young may die, the old must die' resonates loudly in their minds, every time they develop a cough, become out of breathe or whatever?

When you're old there are daily reminders of your approaching end, like that humorous piece by Leo ROSENBERG who claimed "...First you forget names, then you forget faces, then you forget to pull your zipper up, then you forget to pull your zipper down..." a giggle for sure, nevertheless a reminder of being old. Perhaps assisted dying shouldn't be (only) the sole preserve of the sick and dying, how about those oldies who are just sick of life?

I the whole topic of oh first it's those who want to die and then... ignoring the twit who posted it... does anyone remember those arguments about gay marriage. First is the gays and then what people marrying their dogs?!

The IQ2 Debate: 'Should Euthanasia Be Legalized?' that I posted a link to earlier featured distinguished Australian guests, including the then leader of the Greens Bob Brown.

In the excerpt video I posted, the then Australian Shadow Minister for Health and Aging, Tony Abbott, argued against legalizing euthanasia, explaining that government and inheritors may abuse the situation. "Let's not make bad laws based on hard cases," he said.

It is highly relevant to the thread.

Specifically, that economic rationalisation and strapped budgets could put pressure on the frail aged, including of course the highly vulnerable terminally ill to end it all sooner than they might where they enjoyed care and support.

- Whose 'life sentences' are not always measured in days or weeks and who do not necessarily suffer unrelieved, intolerable pain where palliative care is available (and preferably where possible is delivered at home and in the care of their family and friends.

There should not be any need to add but it is apparently required in this thread, that feelings of being unwanted, poor care options including lack of access and cost, do impact through causing depression that adds to suffering and leaves assisted suicide as the only way out. The only door at the end of a very dark tunnel.

While it may not suit some OLO poster/s who for some reason (political partisanship?) aim to censor through limiting and discouraging discussion, end of life options including palliative care are relevant considerations.

I would like to give this more time, but that should be enough for the intelligent, caring and compassionate.

Yes Zeil, it’s known as the ‘slippery slope’: http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope.

The main problem with the slippery slope, in the context of this debate, is that, firstly, it’s easy to galvanise debate by raising the possibility of adverse creep, but much harder to actually provide good evidence that we will ever be at risk of such creep; secondly it assumes that any creep that occurs (if it occurs at all) will be negative.

I think slippery slope arguments underestimate people in general, too. My wife’s grandmother died a few days ago. This woman was horrid. Some of the things she did were so bad that one could quite easily forgive her children and grandchildren for having nothing to do with her, even as she lay dying in hospital. If anyone deserved to be pressured into speeding things up a bit with euthanasia, it was her. Yet there was no sign at all that any of them would have done that, had it been an option. They were all still devastated over what they were about to lose (and probably what they never had, too), and spent her last days trying to be the family they could never seem to be when she was healthy.

Like I said earlier, I think we’re a mature enough society to handle euthanasia with the care and respect that it would require. I’m not so sure about medical insurers, but we can legislate for them, even if the libertarians don’t like it.

No one ever seems to argue against cuts to welfare by claiming that it will lead to its eventual abolition. We’re a mature enough society to be able to tinker with welfare payments without fearing that a political party would be crazy enough to eventually want welfare abolished altogether, forcing people out onto the streets. Why can’t we grant the same when it comes to euthanasia?