Should people have a choice in the right to end
their lives?

This is a controversial subject but I thought it
would be worthwhile discussing the pros and cons
of this debate seeing as the law has been passed in
the state of Victoria.

Funny things take place when posting some views here
The answer is YES no faith no law no one has the right to force us to live
I reject any faith in any way ordering me to live or die
Nice lookout near here, big jump last few seconds view would be great
My body will not outlive my brain

If the quality of the existence is such that it destroys the quality of life of the carer then let nothing stand in the way of ending the life of the dependent, especially if the cared for desires it ! Those against raise your hands to take on the caring !

We still have that right, & the means Foxy, if we are smart about it. We can't wait until we are too frail or restricted in our movement or activities, but if we plan early enough, we can still chose for ourselves.

How many fatal car crashes, on long straight roads do you think are accidents for what ever cause, & how many do you think might have been suicides. This is my chosen & planned for exit, if things become too tough. My hardest decision would be which car do I take with me.

It would be less messy if we were allowed to buy & take at our choice, a painless pill, but while there are still cars available, the choice is ours.

How many people would the legislation apply to? A few each year? I look at the death industry in Switzerland and think it terribly grubby. I also see such legislation as a means of government pressuring people to end their lives rather than be a burden on society.

What turned my opinion years ago was an assisted suicide of a woman suffering chronic pain from bowel adhesions. She was the mascot of the euthanasia movement and I felt that her life to these people was no more than the value of a political statement.

No thank you.

I would not wish an excruciatingly slow death on
anybody. I have witnessed watching a family friend
suffer in this way. It was devastating. And yet I
have to admit that it would not be an easy choice
to make if it was my family member. I know how
difficult it would be keeping terminally ill or
vegetative patients on life support indefinitely.
Yet my traditional religious beliefs about the
sanctity of life still float around at the back of my mind.

Could I make the decision to end the life of a family member,
or even my own life? In all honesty I don't know.
And as for allowing people who are healthy and want to end
their lives? I would have to give that some very serious
thought.

Fester exactly, exactly what I said, you, no faith, no government, no one has the right to order me to live
Hasbeen my intention is not to take anyone with me, my long leep is remote and planned, some have used it in deep despair already

People can decide to end their own lives now; and they do so all the time. Suicide might be a crime, technically, but no one who has done it has ever been prosecuted.

Hey Belly, I said my difficult decision would be which CAR to take with me, not a person, but a much loved CAR.

Assisted suicide is illegal in all Australian states
and territories except for Victoria.

Of course taking your own life is not illegal - but
it is very traumatic for the family left behind.

There have been a number of criminal convictions
involving euthanasia and assited dying. However
prosecution is rare and usually results in lenient
penalities (such as wholly suspended sentences where the
offender does not serve any time in prison).

The prosecution can choose whether they prosecute for
assisted suicide or for murder or manslaughter and will
look at:

1) The level of assistance provided by the person (did
they actually cause the death or were they only involved
in the preparation for the suicide).

2) Whether the offender pleaded guilty early and
assisted authorities.

3) The mental capacity of the deceased (if the deceased
was not mentally competent the appropriate charge is
likely to be murder or manslaughter).

And -

4) Whether there was a suicide pact between the person and
the deceased and that person survived.

What is legal in Australia:

1) Both suicide and attempted suicide.

2) Refusing unwanted, painful, and futile
medical treatment leading to death from the
illness.

3) Refusing food and drink leading to death from
starvation and dehydration.

4) Being administered large doses of pain-reliving
drugs, even though this may hasten death. This is
not against the law if the primary intention of the
doctor is to relieve pain.

5) Being put into a permanent state of unconsciousness
leading to death - this is often called -
"continuous palliative sedation."

Dear Hassie,

Don't try to die in a car crash. Think of your family
members.

Those against it should be engaged to pick up the pieces ! Start a register of them now, will save a lot of arguing !

Potential suicides should first make up their minds to do it properly, i.e. not leave a mess for others to clean up

Top marks to those who strip off and cut their wrists in the bathtub or shower stall with a good flow of warm water running, and thus leave a clean corpse, the water washes away the blood and the inevitable body waste.

From personal experience as a cleaner-upper, the shotgun in the mouth leaves a nasty mess, not the least of which is spackling up holes in ceilings/walls and neutralizing the bloodstains so that they don't come through the new paint.

Dear Foxy,

«Should people have a choice in the right to end their lives?»

While people have and ought to have a choice without criminal implications, there should be no such right.

It is not for the state to grant such "rights", just as it is not for the state to grant you the right to eat cauliflower. You eat cauliflower despite there being no law that gives you the right to eat it, you also may use a walking-stick without a law that gives you the right or the license to use a walking-stick - same should be for ending one's life as well as for helping others to end their lives (though they might be called to prove that it was not a murder).

But is it wise to end one's life, with or without help?

No, not for selfish reasons anyway: you cannot avoid suffering by dying, rather you will have to be reborn and suffer for both the outstanding karma that you were trying to avoid as well as for the suicide itself. Asking someone else for assistance is even worse because it also scars the other person.

.

As I have already written and published an article on this subject, I provide a link to it here for anybody who may be interested :

http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=c1447c7d-6904-4d9e-a7d6-a67edd6fb115&subId=300148

.

If you have people who will morn your death, then you should not voluntarily choose to die. The exception to this rule would be in the choice to accept medical assistance and treatment to stay alive. A person should have the right to not be put through more suffering through treatment or only alive through life support. Both due to the state of living and the cost of the medicine.

you cannot avoid suffering by dying,
Yuyutsu,
On our planet you can !

Dear Banjo,

I seem to be unable to access the link you gave.

As I understand it - currently as far as the
law in Australia is concerned (except for Victoria)
a patient has no legal right to insist on medical
intervention that would end his or her life.

In other words a competent patient's common law
"right to bodily self-determination" only extends to
the refusal of treatment. A patient can't require any
doctor to administer any treatment or medical procedure
that the patient requests.

This restriction extends to medical procedures that
would cause or hasten a patient's death.

I suppose this goes back to the fact that doctors are
expected to do all they can to sustain life.

I guess we need to ask - where do we draw the line at
allowing doctors to intervene and assist in helping
a person end their life?

Is it for the terminally ill - who are suffering?
Is it for people in a semivegetating state, who have
lost their functional and mental independence?

Should doctors continue to pursue a vigorous therapy
that would benefit no one except their own satisfaction
in twarting death, regardless of the consequences?

Hi Foxy, as I mentioned the other day on another thread, I had a visit from a dear old soul from the local Catholic Church on a mission to drum up support for the Churches anti-euthanasia stance. The old dear failed to change my mind. For some it is a difficult question, but for me its clear cut, allowing a person to make a decision to end their own life is a right all of us should have. Like any moral issue, gay marriage was another example, why should I, or anyone else, dictate to others what they can or cannot do. Am I so morally superior that I should be the decider of someone else's morals, no I don't think so.

Talking with a Salvation Army Chaplain last week on this very issue. To my surprise he was very supportive of those in that terrible position, and could fully understand why a dying person would choose to end their life. My Chaplain mate has seen too many people die in pain, a horrible end for some, without dignity. I also seen that with a friend last year, only 42, she had fought cancer for seven years. Her end was a lingering death, particularly the last two weeks, in a hospice for the dying.

Dear Paul,

I also have gone through a similar bad experience
with someone close to me. Someone who was forced to
reside in a nursing home. Her mind was destroyed.
She did not know where she was or how long she
had been there. She could not read, watch
television, walk alone, use a telephone, or play
card games. She lost bladder control and bowel
continence. She could now wash herself, feed herself,
dress or transfer from be to chair to bathroom.

Her visitors and family had to deal with the agony of
her vegetation. Her last days were dreadful.

She should have been allowed to die with dignity.

Foxy,

Yes, IF nobody else has any involvement in his/her 'decision' or in her actions. So there would be many situations where somebody is not conscious or aware enough to make that decision, so the tragic necessity, if you like, is that they have to linger until death takes them. Of course, if they are in pain, the doctors can prescribe more morphine as a pain-killer, even if that slows down everything to the point where the person fades away in a coma.

My wife passed away in that way, from liver cancer, three weeks after diagnosis: basically one dies in those circumstances from starvation, since the liver is too far gone to process any food. My wife's pain was managed, but towards the end, she couldn't sleep and asked for something to help her, which involved increased doses of morphine, and off she went, slowly and peacefully. She had been told that she had more than another week to live, which she told us matter-of-factly (morphine seems to do that), so on reflection, she probably thought that she would have a good sleep and wake up with another few days to go. That was not to be. If there is such a thing, it was a beautiful ending for a wonderful person.

Now look what you've done to me, Foxy !

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe,

My heart goes out to you and your family.

She must have been a wonderful lady.

Eternal Rest Grant to her, O Lord
And let perpetual light shine on her
May she Rest In Peace
Amen.

Hi Foxy,
Sorry about your loved one.

Living with quality of life is more important than the quantity of life. I think some have a far more fulfilling life in 40 years than others do in 80, that's another question for another thread. How our end should be is something we should decide for ourselves.
Our friend, in the last two weeks of her life did confide to her mother and my wife (her best friend) when she was cognisant that she "just wanted to die". K also told them that she was afraid, scared, worried, saddened by what she was loosing, and didn't know what to expect after death. People in that position are mostly not prepared for death, those on death row in their final hours seem to be better prepared for what is coming than the majority of the terminally ill.

Also, in our culture I don't think we the living are all that well prepared for the loss of a loved one. Our grieving process leaves a lot to be desired. My Maori family have a far better way to deal with death than we do, a much longer process and it does seem to deliver closure for many, whereby our way, pack em' and dispatch em', does not.

Dear Paul,

I still have moments when I re-live things.

I guess possibly with time things will get better.

My dad died of an unexpected massive coronary at
the age of 52. It was devastating for the family,
but for him it was all over in an instant.

Thank you, Foxy, you have a good heart :)

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe,

As do you dear friend.

Hi Foxy,

I lost my Father to cancer over 30 years ago, he was my best mate. I found it hard for a long time after. We were very close, and I was the one given the unenviable task of telling him his test results that gave him a few weeks to live. I was also the only one there in the hospital 3 weeks later when he took a severe convulsion, and the doctor had to administered a massive dose of diamorphine, I believe it was double the prescribed amount, which ended his life in an instant. My sister called it murder, I called it a favour.

Dear Paul,

I'm so sorry about your father.

People in grief say stupid things. I trust your
sister will come to understand how wrong she was.

Take care.

.

Dear Fozy,

.

I’m sorry about the link. For some unknown reason, it works for me here in Paris. Never mind, the best I can do is to suggest you click on the following link and go to Submission N° 133 (Mr Rod Crisp) and open the pdf file where, hopefully, you will find my article entitled “Justice – A matter of Life and Death” :

http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Dying_with_Dignity/Submissions
.

Perhaps I should explain that the article was published in the Jul-Sept edition of the Australian Quarterly in 2014. I later discovered, quite accidentally, that somebody had submitted it to a federal parliamentary inquiry that year on proposed legalisation of euthanasia in Australia.

As I had no objection to that – quite the contrary – I just let it ride.

If, for some reason, you still can’t access the article, the only other suggestion I can make is to contact AQ Magazine on the following link. It appeared on the 85th anniversary of the magazine (2014), Vol 85 Issue 3 :

http://aips.net.au/aq-magazine/

.

Dear Banjo,

Thank You so much for giving me the opportunity
to access your article.

For what it's worth - I think its brilliant.
And rightly deserves recognition and accolades.
Brilliantly argued. I especially liked your statement
- if life is a fundamental human right then so is death
or words to that affect.

No wonder it got published.

Have you published any else? I'd love to get hold of some
of your works.

A few years ago I nursed an elderly aunt as she died. She had been in poor health for years, lived alone (by choice) with support from nearby family and visiting nurses, but at the end I moved in, from another city, to look after her 24/7. She was adamant that she wanted to die at home, not in hospital and especially not in a nursing home.

Effectively she starved herself to death, refusing food and water (and medication), but she was set up with a morphine drip with myself as the authorised person (paperwork!). I was aware that it was within my power to speed her death, via the morphine, but I would never have gone against my aunt's religious convictions. I'm not sure what I would have done if she asked me to help her go. In the circumstances, with plenty of time sitting at the bedside, the thought of my own death couldn't be avoided. The last few weeks were horrendous for her and something I will never be erase from my mind (PTSD anyone?)

I would like to chose the time and method of my death, but definitely not by car crash. I want my family to know and to support me, and for the process to be as untraumatic as possible for all of us. A staged suicide by car crash or otherwise would leave too many uncertainties and regrets - was it an accident or suicide? why didn't she say anything? I want to say good-bye properly.

Dear Cossomby,

Thank You for sharing what must have been very difficult
for you. My mother-in-law also refused food and drink
to hasten her death. She was given palliative care in a
nursing home. She eventually just passed away after several
weeks. It was also heart-wrenching but it was her decision.
She just decided she'd had enough. Her husband had died
earlier. She was 91 years old. Of course it would have been
better had she been given the choice of assisted-suicide
but at that time this was not available in Victoria, and
again being deeply religious, I'm not sure that she would
have accepted that option either.

It's a complex issue.

Rereading my post, it sounds pretty negative, so it's important to add a positive.

My aunt died at about 5am, and I waited till 7 before advising anyone. My sister and niece joined me, and after the doctor had come and certified the death, and we waited for undertaker, we decided to wash and dress my aunt. As anyone who has been at a slow death knows, it can be rather messy. We washed her, shampooed her hair, put some make-up on, and went through the wardrobe to decide on what dress she would have liked to be buried in. When the undertakers arrived they were stunned - the old tradition of the family laying out the dead is rare these days. We were left with a beautiful last memory of our aunt: dressed to the nines and looking lovely.

Dear Cossomby,

Thank You for ending on a positive note.

My mum's wish was to be buried in the Lithuanian
National Costume. She had a magnificent one - as
she was an active member of the choir. Of course
we granted her wish. And viewing her body in the
Chapel, I was so glad we did. She looked beautiful.

The science and technology of medicine are transforming
the treatment of the diseased and the injured and
millions of people owe their health and lives to the
dramatic medical innovations of the past few decades.

Some of the new technologies however, are creating new
problems even as they solve old ones. In particular
the new technologies have given doctors and patients
and their families a range of difficult life-or-death
choices that they did not have even a few years ago.

For example, terminally ill patients can now be kept alive
through artificial respiratory intravenous feeding,
electronic heart stimulation, mechanical organ substitutes, or
even transplants of body parts from other people or animals.

Consequently medical dilemmas frequently today become moral
and legal ones as well.

.

Dear Foxy,

.

The article on euthanasia was the second of a trilogy I wrote on justice and published in AQ Magazine in 2014. The first was “Justice – Back to the Drawing Board” and the third : “Justice: The Achilles‘ Heel of Democracy”.

Unfortunately, the full texts are not freely available on the internet but here are links to the AQ presentations :

http://aips.net.au/aq-magazine/back-issues/from2008/aq-back-issues-2014/aq-volume-85-issue-2/

http://aips.net.au/aq-magazine/back-issues/from2008/aq-back-issues-2014/aq-volume-85-issue-4/

Apart from that, I have published quite a few articles here on OLO as well as one, some years ago, in the Griffith Review (of the Griffith University in Qld), entitled “The Republic of Australia and New Zealand”, which you might find amusing. The full text is available here :

http://griffithreview.com/articles/republic-australia-new-zealand/

Also, if you can read French, here is a link to an article I published in Paris in the French intelligentsia magazine, “Esprit”, on what are purported to be local democratic institutions, but which, in fact, are democratic in name only (unfortunately, I can’t find a link to another article I published in the “Revue Urbanisme” on the same topic some years previously) :

http://esprit.presse.fr/article/crisp-rodney/democratie-de-proximite-39620

That's about the best I can do, I'm afraid.

.

Banjo will read what I can find and thanks
My post, telling about my intention to not let others tell me I must live is true
Even know the name of my future [if needed] leap
The final milliseconds are planned too, that cliff has great Orchids half way down, if thinking is possible it is my intention to look at them on the waydown

Dear Banjo,

Thank You for the links.

I shall certainly read them and I'm sure I shall
enjoy them. I love your work. You're a breath
of fresh air on this forum.

Unfortunately I don't read French. I have a friend
who does though and I'll seek their help.

Again Thank You.

When my father died of a sudden massive heart attack I was too busy looking after mum, who was shattered to grieve much. By the time I had built a granny flat, sold her house, & got her & her gear it was really too late to start grieve for dad.

When mum went 20 years later, just after her 99 birthday I surprisingly started grieving more for dad than her, although there was plenty for her too.

It is strange how I could defer it for 20 years, then fell it as if it was just yesterday.

Dear Hassie,

Dad also died of a massive coronary at the age of
52. It happened on a very humid summer's day in
Sydney. Dad was on his way to work with a friend
and fell in the street. He was a very fit man.
He died in the ambulance on his way to hospital.
We were overseas in Canada at the time when we got
the phone call. I never got to attend the funeral.

I was shattered but I still think about it all even
today.

" The pain we feel for familiar things
That all too often in a flash
Bring back glimpses of days past
And then I remember him, but with difficulty
For he has been gone long

The memory is clear and always sweet
The grey at his temples
That turned white so quickly people said
His joy at his privacy
Able to forget briefly his daily bread

Giving,
Above all else I remember the giving
The smile, the talk, the laugh
Are all things that linger with moments shared
Now remembered

But the giving will be his epitaph
' Give and you shall receive'
Words etched in sweat on my father's grave
Now the legacy remains. "

VALE - Tim Fischer. Died 22.08.2019.

I just want to let you all know that
Tim Fischer former Nationals leader
and deputy PM has died from leukaemia
aged 73.

May he rest in peace.
We owe the man a great deal - especially for standing by
the introduction of strict gun laws after the Port
Arthur massacre.

I think that this discussion has now run its course.

I would like to Thank all who took the time to
contribute to it.

See you on our next discussion.