1. National Day of Shame - injesus.com 2. Baillieu marks out green battlefield - The Age 3. I'd like to die with dignity. And I don't want the medieval brigade interfering - The Times(UK) 4. The ethics of assisted suicide - BBCNews 1. National Day of Shame The Sentinel Team May 11 2006 injesus.com http://www.injesus.com/index.php?module=message&task=view&mid=9b007abu&groupid= ZB00636I Downunder, Dr. Philip Nitschke, of Exit International and fellow Aussie euthenasia campaigners consider themselves exiles since the Australian government introduced the "Suicide Related Materials Offences Act" in early 2006. They now operate their reception and website from New Zealand as the Act prevents them from using the telephone, email, fax or Internet for their work here. Their website, however, announces that they will be holding a "Remembering ROTI Conference" or "Bob Dent Day" in Sydney on September 22nd, 2006. This year apparently signals the 10th Anniversary of the Rights of the Terminally ill (ROTI) Act that was passed in the Northern Territory in 1995 and later overturned by the Federal government. On September 22nd 1996, Bob Dent became the first person to use this Northern Territory legislation as well as the first person in the world to die from a legal, voluntary lethal injection. An award is presented on this day to EI supporters... Greens Sentator, Bob Brown, received one in 2001 and Queensland Activist & Nancy Crick organiser, John Edge, received one in 2003. March 26th 2007 they are also planning what they call a "A National Day of Shame" in Canberra to mark the overturning of the ROTI Act. (Link <http://www.exitinternational.net/> ) PLEASE PRAY THAT OUR LEADERS CONTINUE TO STAND FOR LIFE. ****** 2. Baillieu marks out green battlefield The Age By Mathew Murphy and Paul Austin May 12, 2006 LIBERAL leader Ted Baillieu has moved to boost the party's social and environmental credentials, pledging his support for voluntary euthanasia and warning that the channeldeepening project should not go ahead if it will damage Port Phillip Bay.
He also called for limits on greenhouse gases being emitted from Hazelwood power station and said a Liberal government would support wind farms provided they had support and were not built in pristine coastal areas. He told The Age he was a strong supporter of voluntary euthanasia but he would not seek to make it law unless there was widespread backing. He stands by his comments as state Liberal president a decade ago, when he praised the Northern Territory's euthanasia legislation. "It's compassionate, it's voluntary, it has the safeguards, it's about dignity," he told a Liberal state council meeting in 1996. Mr Baillieu yesterday said Port Phillip Bay should be dredged only if the environment could be protected. "We've said that we think the channel deepening needs to proceed but as far as we're concerned it is not going to proceed unless there is unequivocal evidence that it won't damage the bay," he said. On Hazelwood, he said: "Victoria has substantial coal reserves (and) we are going to be using those into the future. "What we need to do is to ensure that the outputs from our electricity generation in the (Latrobe Valley) are as clean as possible." He said the Bracks Government had turned wind farms into a divisive issue. "There is a place for wind (farms) but it isn't in coastal landscapes and it isn't in places where local communities don't want them," he said. Mr Baillieu made the comments as he announced that a Liberal government would create a 98-hectare conservation and recreation park once the Frankston Reservoir was decommissioned at the end of the year. Signalling that he would make the environment a key battlefield in the lead-up to the November 25 election, he challenged the Government to reveal its plans for the land. Geoff Fraser, a spokesman for Environment Minister John Thwaites, said a working party involving local stakeholders was considering options and would report to the Government within weeks. He said there would be no commercial sell-off to developers. Victorian Greens spokesman Greg Barber said it was encouraging that the new Liberal leader was talking about environmental issues. "It is good that these issues are being put on the table and that (Mr Baillieu) is flagging that these issues are important," Mr Barber said. "It is a bit too early to tell what the Liberals' approach will be, but we look forward to seeing the policies when they come." A LIBERAL AGENDA Supports voluntary euthanasia. Supports decriminalisation of abortion. Supports channel deepening, but only if it can be shown not to damage Port Phillip Bay. Wants wind farms kept away from pristine coastal areas. Will impose full tolls on EastLink. Will consider tolls to help pay for new roads. Endorses John Howard's new workplace laws.
****** 3. I'd like to die with dignity. And I don't want the medieval brigade interfering The Times(UK) May 11, 2006 Camilla Cavendish FOUR YEARS AGO today, Diane Pretty died. Remember her? Or have you blotted out her fight to avoid the medieval death the law prescribed: to be slowly asphyxiated by the motor neuron disease paralysing her body until she was reduced to a shred, a shard of pain, an intelligent mind attached to a feeding tube? Diane had to go through the one thing she had foreseen and was most afraid of, her husband has said. And there was nothing I could do to help. Our civilised society regularly puts dogs and cats out of their misery on compassionate grounds. Yet it views with distaste those who beg to be spared the final stages of a terminal illness, and criminalises anyone who dares to help them. Some doctors, thank heavens, still drive through the countryside with heads down and morphine hidden. One, Dr Michael Irwin, was struck off by the General Medical Council last year for taking tablets to a terminally ill friend. Most now desert their patients in their hour of need. For in the 21st century the law insists that God shall dictate our time of passing. Our churchmen preen and preach and rage about the immorality of assisted suicide. But it is their position that is immoral. They are amassing again tomorrow, the holies and the holier-than-thous, the bishops, the Evangelical Alliance and Care Not Killing, to vote down the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill. The House of Lords will be overrun with self-righteousness, in a false cause. For this legislation is sane and merciful. It is clear and limited. It would make it lawful for a physician to give lethal drugs to a terminally ill patient if that patient was judged mentally competent, had signed a written request, was deemed by two doctors to be suffering unbearably and was due to die within six months. No doctor, hospital or clinic, could be forced to assist. But Good Samaritans would no longer be punished. The ferocity of the opposition contrasts with the modesty of the proposals. In March The Catholic Herald described the opposition to assisted suicide as the biggest political campaign [by the Church] in its modern history. Religious people have every right to reject suicide for themselves. It s fine for them to extol the wonders of palliative care, ignoring the doctors who acknowledge that even the best clinics in the world cannot relieve all pain. But it is not for them to impose pain on others. Suffering can be good for us, was the astounding comment from the Rev George Curry, chairman of the Church Society, criticising Anne Turner s decision to die in Switzerland in January. Turner was a 67-year-old doctor who knew precisely how horrible her death from progressive supranuclear palsy would be. The only charitable view of Mr Curry is that perhaps he didn t. Turner tried first to take her own life: suicide has been legal here since 1961. When that failed, she wanted help to achieve death with dignity. Yet even that option is now in peril. Stefan Sliwinski, whose mother died last week at a Swiss centre run by the group Dignitas, is being questioned by Essex Police. Mr Sliwinski said that his mother had cancer and multiple sclerosis, was in constant pain and wanted to die. But her sister has made a complaint. So he could be charged with assisting a suicide, for having accompanied his mother. The most powerful argument against euthanasia is the fear that a right to die could become a duty to die. It would clearly be abhorrent if elderly people were to feel pressurised to go early to preserve the kids inheritance. Lord Joffe s Bill is drawn explicitly to avoid any such slippery slope. In Oregon, which has had similar legislation for eight years, there has been no
suggestion of elderly people feeling under pressure. In eight years there have been 265 prescriptions of lethal drugs, of which only 117 were taken, with the elderly using assisted dying less than other age groups. Meanwhile, palliative care has improved in Oregon, according to Professor Raymond Tallis, former chair of the Royal College of Physicians ethics and medicine committee, because the law takes end-of-life decisions seriously. Plus, there is now open discussion. There are genuine concerns about the Netherlands, where the law is not limited to adults or to the terminally ill. About 9,700 requests for euthanasia are made annually, of which 3,800 are met. The Dutch do seem to interpret their guidelines in ever broadening terms: in one case a court ruled that psychic suffering could qualify, as well as physical pain. This is a direct consequence of the loose wording of the law, which bears no comparison with the safeguards in the assisted dying Bill. But do not expect to hear that from the scaremongers. We hate to dwell on death, but we know we may not be lucky enough to go quietly. A 2004 poll found that 51 per cent of respondents would want a doctor, relative or friend to break the law if they were terminally ill and suffering, and 55 per cent would break the law to help a loved one. That is a courageous stance. Abandoned by the law, many people have sacrificed themselves to help relatives desperate to die. They have ended up addicted to drink or drugs, or killed themselves. Many doctors are reluctant to take on that burden. Yet yesterday s headlines, that doctors have come out against changing the law, were misleading. First, the survey quoted covered only a quarter of doctors. Secondly, 30 per cent of them were in favour of assisted suicide. That is more than enough physicians to deliver help to the tiny number of terminally ill patients who might request it. Since there has never been any question of forcing doctors to act against their consciences, it is meaningless to treat this survey as a poll. Tomorrow s battle pitches the medieval forces of religion against the modern forces of freedom. If the Bill succeeds, it could end a shameful legal, ethical and medical fudge. If it fails, it turns us all into potential Diane Prettys. Let that be on the conscience of all those who so loudly claim that their opposition is based on conscience. ****** 4. The ethics of assisted suicide BBC News By Daniel Sokol Medical ethicist, Imperial College London On Friday the House of Lords will debate Lord Joffe's private member's bill, Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill. If passed, the bill will allow terminally ill adults in unbearable pain to receive medical help in dying. Many objections to physician-assisted suicide are based on religious prohibitions. These can only be countered by refuting the religion itself - a notoriously hard thing to do - or by arguing that religious teaching actually permits the act. I shall not employ either of these arguments. Harm is, at least in part, a subjective notion Religion-based reasons will not persuade the secular folk, and hence many objectors usually replace or supplement their arguments with non-religious reasons.
Some of the secular reasons against physician-assisted suicide (PAS) appear speculative or ill-informed. Initial doubts They remind the historically aware of the initial reactions surrounding practices which are now widely accepted (for example, human dissection, considered an affront to human dignity in Hippocratic times, and vaccination, considered unnatural and a thwarting of God's will in the 19th and 20th centuries). Some reasons, however, are more convincing. One such reason is that PAS will change the way members of the public view doctors. In the public's mind, doctors will become part-time executioners. We cannot predict if this will occur, but even if it did at first adversely affect the public's perspective, it is not a sufficient reason to reject the bill. People's views can, and do, change. If physician-assisted suicide is morally acceptable, then the fact that people might frown upon it does not alter the morality of the act. Hippocratic Oath Another common argument about PAS, especially amongst doctors, is that it violates the Hippocratic dictum: 'first, do no harm'. If we strictly adhered to Hippocratic teachings, abortion should also be abolished This principle was insightful in Hippocratic times when doctors mostly did more harm than good - magic and superstition were rife, and efficacious treatments few - but not in this scientific age. The oath is now out of date. If we strictly adhered to Hippocratic teachings, abortion should also be abolished, for the Oath says "Neither will I give a woman means to procure an abortion". It is therefore wrong slavishly to revere - as some still do - the Hippocratic Oath. If taken literally, the only way doctors could 'do no harm' would be by declining to treat all patients. Even simple medical procedures, such as taking a blood sample or injecting a local anaesthetic, entail some risks to the patient. Many procedures and treatments require doctors to inflict harm in order to bring about some good. In an appendectomy, the surgeon cuts open the patient's abdomen (a harm) to remove the troublesome appendix (a benefit). Balance of good As the ethicist Professor Raanan Gillon points out, doctors have a duty not to cause net harm. In my view, physician-assisted suicide can be compatible with love, kindness and compassion Is PAS a net harm to the patient who wants it? Those in favour of the act will argue that helping a terminally ill patient to die is a benefit, not a harm. Harm is, at least in part, a subjective notion. What is beneficial or harmful to a particular patient is determined to some extent by the patient's perception.
If I choose to donate a kidney to my sick brother, no one would rightfully accuse the surgeon of having harmed me by removing the organ. Overall, the operation would benefit me in spite of the physical harm. Respecting a patient's autonomous wishes can itself constitute a benefit. Thus it is far from clear that allowing doctors to help patients end their lives infringes the dictum 'first, do no (net) harm'. An answer to the morality of PAS can be found by reflecting on the essence of medicine. This is no easy task. Paracelsus, in the 16th century, wrote that medicine was grounded in love. More recently, Sir William Osler stressed the importance of humanity, which consists in showing 'tenderness and consideration to the weak, infinite pity to the suffering, and broad charity to all'. He reminded doctors to keep a 'clear head and a kind heart'. When the late Jean Bernard, the distinguished French haematologist, was asked by a journalist a few years ago: "technology aside, on what is medicine based?", he replied "on love, on compassion, since medicine will always be about man". In my view, physician-assisted suicide can be compatible with love, kindness and compassion. The real difficulties lie in regulating the practice to limit the possibility of abuse and, once that is overcome, in summing up the courage to do what is morally right in the face of anticipated abuse and opposition. Daniel Sokol is the co-author if Medical Ethics and Law: Surviving on the Wards and Passing Exams. END Deliverance Daily Newsserver Provided to Exit International members To unsubscribe: <admin@exitinternational.net> Please also state if you no longer wish to receive the Exit monthly e-deliverance newsletter For comments & News items to be listed - admin@exitinternational.net