Thread: VOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA. Seeking ideas in support of the concept.

In Australia, and around the world, Dr Philip Nitschke is a strong campaigner for voluntary euthanasia.

Please note the key word “voluntary”.

I support the idea. Although I'm not presently involved, I’ve started thinking I might throw my lot in with Dr Nitschke.

Euthanasia in any form is presently illegal in Australia.

Naturally, the biggest obstacle is the Church. The second-biggest is possibly a combination of general narrow-mindedness and negativism.

At the time of posting I don't know, in detail, what the members of Dr Nitschke's group are doing, to achieve their goals.

Here's a link to their website: http://www.exitinternational.net/

My own basic thinking is that supporters need a strong and persuasive representative body whose goal is to win over opponents.

If I join the group, it would be for the purpose of promoting such a goal in every way possible.

I’m open to all in-depth suggestions oriented towards that same goal.

Thank you.

Well, to start off with, if you support this group I would suggest your best way to help them succeed is to not get involved.

If you characterize the main opponents of the idea as either "religiously minded" or "narrow-minded and negative" your clearly not the type of person they need to win over opponents.

For instance: I am a Christian. While I believe the Bible is quite clear on never committing suicide, I am very sympathetic to the use of euthanasia for terminally ill patients, or brain dead patients unable to sustain themselves. To me that's not suicide, but shortening the wait time on the inevitable outcome of their affliction. I'm skeptical of our ability to implement it in an acceptable form, so it would have to be a long, arduous process to form the laws, safety measures, before I could fully support the idea.

So, if not being involved isn't an option for you, I would suggest not being so narrow-minded and negative towards the goals of the opposition. Many of those opposed, perhaps the swing vote in its entirety, would likely respond positively to a well thought out, cogent argument that eased their fears of misuse. This does not begin with hostile labeling, as you have done with me and subsequently me to you.

You're a great writer Ox, and would be a benefit to their cause, you might just need a little brush up on your rhetoric to make your contribution soar.

Is this a restarted thread?

Originally Posted by Bloggsworth

Is this a restarted thread?

Re-vamped, and moved to a different forum. Wheels within wheels.

Originally Posted by Capulet

Well, to start off with, if you support this group I would suggest your best way to help them succeed is to not get involved.

If you characterize the main opponents of the idea as either "religiously minded" or "narrow-minded and negative" your clearly not the type of person they need to win over opponents.

For instance: I am a Christian. While I believe the Bible is quite clear on never committing suicide, I am very sympathetic to the use of euthanasia for terminally ill patients, or brain dead patients unable to sustain themselves. To me that's not suicide, but shortening the wait time on the inevitable outcome of their affliction. I'm skeptical of our ability to implement it in an acceptable form, so it would have to be a long, arduous process to form the laws, safety measures, before I could fully support the idea.

So, if not being involved isn't an option for you, I would suggest not being so narrow-minded and negative towards the goals of the opposition. Many of those opposed, perhaps the swing vote in its entirety, would likely respond positively to a well thought out, cogent argument that eased their fears of misuse. This does not begin with hostile labeling, as you have done with me and subsequently me to you.

You're a great writer Ox, and would be a benefit to their cause, you might just need a little brush up on your rhetoric to make your contribution soar.

Thanks for the thought. I'm not all that silly. The WF me and the real me are two very different people. And anyway, you might notice I used the qualifier "possibly".

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

Re-vamped, and moved to a different forum. Wheels within wheels.

So what happened to the previous posts?

Originally Posted by Zootalaws

So what happened to the previous posts?

THAT is the sixty-four dollar question.

Okay, I'll 'fess up. This is a new thread. The old one fell off the side of the Earth.

Although euthenasia is illegal in the UK, unnofficially it does happen. A lot of the time by way of administering more and more morphine to counteract pain until the morphine kills the patient. The administrations of this morphine is minuted by doctors and nurses and the minutes later studied closely by the hierarchy for any foulplay. Of course, they all know there is foulplay (perhaps not the best expression) and are dancing around each other trying to cover their asses, while trying to ease dying patients on their way. They don't always succeed in covering ass and have been sued by grieving relatives. Sometimes the pain of a patient is too much for anything other than a terminal dose.


There must be occasions however, where a dying patient is in agony but some dispassionate doctor in an office will not risk his neck in authorising adequate amounts of morphine to reduce it. I find this frightening. I think doctors and nurses become hardened enough to the pain of patients as it is, without having the extra burden (for the patient) of medical staff worrying about their asses more than the patient's pain.

Originally Posted by spider8

Although euthenasia is illegal in the UK, unnofficially it does happen...

There must be occasions however, where a dying patient is in agony but some dispassionate doctor in an office will not risk his neck in authorising adequate amounts of morphine to reduce it. I find this frightening. I think doctors and nurses become hardened enough to the pain of patients as it is, without having the extra burden (for the patient) of medical staff worrying about their asses more than the patient's pain.

Remember starting your post off saying that euthenasia is illegal? A doctor need not be dispassionate to refrain from killing someone with morphine, they need only be law-abiding. The doctor isn't at fault if the law fails the patient, and I would rather they follow what some would consider a bad law than give them license to arbitrarily choose when to follow it.

If it is truly voluntary, then I do not think the government should tell and individual when or if to end their own life.

Originally Posted by Capulet

Remember starting your post off saying that euthenasia is illegal? A doctor need not be dispassionate to refrain from killing someone with morphine, they need only be law-abiding. The doctor isn't at fault if the law fails the patient, and I would rather they follow what some would consider a bad law than give them license to arbitrarily choose when to follow it.

I think some worry about being sued and so are law-abiding. Some may genuinely respect the law and are not doing it to cover ass. Politicians aren't as dumb as we sometimes think. They'll know what goes on. The laws are a sort of control to stop things getting out of hand (my opinion).

Someone close to me died quite recently due to part-starvation (he couldn't swallow, too painful) and part-morphine overdose. It would have been worse without the staff easing him on his way. But he still would have suffered a lot less if VE was allowed. For instance, there were occasions where he wanted more morphine but had received the maximum allowed for that particular day, so had to suffer until the next morning when the doctor would come in and authorise extra. They knew they were slowly killing him but at the same time officially keeping on the right side of the law, just.

When the nurses phone you just to tell you to tell you they've upped the morphine dose, it's unnofficial-speak for euthanasia. It happened, it happens.

(thinks)

I’m already quite friendly with one of the nurses in the local nursing home…

…maybe, if she stays in that job long enough, I can capitalise on that friendship…

…hmmm

Dr Philip Nitschke is the greatest reason against euthanasia. He's a cold blooded murderer who should have been jailed as such. For those non-Australians, he campaigned to have Nancy Crick kill herself under the claim she was dying from cancer. The autopsy revealed she had no such thing.

Euthanasia is a way to con older people to kill themselves. Essentially, Nitschke in cold blood killed Crick for his campaign. We don't need 1000s of Nitschkes.

Btw : I've worked in a nursing home, and know what it's like. Simple fact is that we shouldn't legalise it because of people like Nitschke.

Originally Posted by Rustgold

Dr Philip Nitschke is the greatest reason against euthanasia. He's a cold blooded murderer who should have been jailed as such. For those non-Australians, he campaigned to have Nancy Crick kill herself under the claim she was dying from cancer. The autopsy revealed she had no such thing.

Perhaps you should give the whole story?:

On 22 May 2002, Crick, with over 20 friends and family (but not Nitschke) present, took a lethal dose of barbiturates, went quickly to sleep, and died within twenty minutes. Nitschke had encouraged Nancy Crick to enter palliative care, which she did for a number of days before returning home again. She had undergone multiple surgeries to treat bowel cancer, and was left with multiple, dense, inoperable bowel adhesions that left her in constant pain and diarrhoea and tied to the toilet, but she was not terminally ill at the time of her death. Dr Nitschke said the scar tissue from previous cancer surgery had caused her suffering. "She didn't actually want to die when she had cancer. She wanted to die after she had cancer treatment," he said.[

Nancy's death became highly politicised after her autopsy results were leaked to the media. This was because the autopsy showed that at that the time of her death, Nancy was 'cancer free' but had an inoperable bowel condition that may have been the cause of her suicide-inducing pain.
Critics of her actions seized on this fact, equating 'cancer free' with being 'well'. This was not the case for Nancy. After her cancer surgeries, Nancy found herself with extensive adhesions from the surgery. Adhesions are well known for making a patient's quality of life worse after surgery than before. Critics argue that Nancy Crick took her own life even though, technically, she had no sign of the bowel cancer. The autopsy makes reference to extremely densely bound adhesions of her large and small bowel.

Euthanasia advocate and cancer sufferer Nancy Crick did not want to die alone as dictated by the law, she revealed in a video released after her death.

The 69-year-old grandmother was surrounded by 21 family and friends when she took her life on the Queensland Gold Coast yesterday.

In the video shown today, Mrs Crick said despite surgery and the best palliative care, her life had deteriorated to such an extent that she felt death would be a blessed relief.

However, she could not legally get help to end her life.

"The thing that most upsets me is that the law says I can kill myself anytime but no-one can be with me because they might have helped me," she said in the video shown on Sky TV.

In an interview with 'The Australian' newspaper two months before her death, Nancy was quoted saying: "I don't know what I've got and they don't know what I've got, but whatever it is, it's bloody well there. And they can't find it with their operations and in the end it comes down to quality of life and I've got none of that now." Nancy Crick took her own life after she decided that her quality of life post 'successful' cancer surgery was unacceptable to her. She said she was in "too much pain".

Queensland police are today investigating the circumstances surrounding the death last night of Nancy Crick, who took her own life in the company of some 20 friends and family.

In recent weeks, the 70-year-old Gold Coast widow had made no secret of her desire to end her struggle with the pain of bowel cancer. Like Norma Hall, the Sydney woman who took her own life last year, Nancy Crick was advised by Dr Phillip Nitschke. He encouraged her to take up an offer of in-patient palliative care at Gold Coast Hospital. But she left the hospital after a few days.

Dr Nitschke wasn't present last night, when Mrs Crick took some lethal drugs which she claimed she acquired through the Internet.

Here is a very moving interview with Nancy Crick on the ABC: 7.30 Report - 23/05/2002: Police investigate Nancy Cricks death

So how is Nitschke "a cold blooded murderer who should have been jailed as such."?

He recommended palliative care for Nancy, that doesn't exactly meet the criteria of 'cold-blooded murderer', does it? He wasn't present at the time of her death, wasn't her doctor, didn't prescribe for her, in fact, his contribution to Nancy's demise was to promote her condition as an example of a healthcare system that didn't have the best interest of the patient at heart.

I don't have a dog in this hunt, as I have been some years out of the Australian healthcare system, but your vilification of Nitschke seems more based on emotion than fact.

I have no issue with you being anti-euthanasia, for whatever personal or moral reason you choose, but your condemnation is just wrong.

Nitschke had his tentacles wrapped around her for years advocating euthanasia. He advocated for her to die. It was like a religious cult brainwashing exercise. She was essentially ensnared in the death grip, of which she couldn't back out from. Also, right up to the leaked autopsy report, he and his lobby group continually claimed that she had cancer, providing faked medical records as evidence.
So you have years of cult-like brainwashing to get somebody to kill themselves, plus you have fake medical reports, plus you have him suppling all of the tools for her to die. That's as much as killing her himself.

They can change the story all they like after the fact, but it's what they did prior to it that counts. My condemnation is perfectly accurate.


If you want my personal opinion; if either of my parents were to ask for it, I'd tell them to do it themselves, because I wouldn't do it for them. If you wish to commit suicide by whatever name to wish to use, then have the guts to do it yourself; and don't put it on others to do it for you.
If people in the world were perfectly decent, I wouldn't care. But many people in the world aren't. My objection to legalisation has nothing to do with morals or personal opinion, unless you wish to classify not wanting to see 1000s of murders hidden as a moral objection.