The argument against euthanasia BY KAREN HITCHCOCKDr Karen Hitchcock is a regular commentator in the Australian media on aging, death and dying. In March this year, she wrote the Quarterly Essay: Dear Life - On caring for the elderly. Last month she appeared on the ABC's Q & A program alongside Andrew Denton.  Continue reading

It was only a matter of time. A month ago, after making a plea bargain to avoid medical tribunal hearings expected to take up to six weeks in Darwin, Philip Nitschke accepted significant restrictions being placed on his licence to practice medicine in return for avoiding a drawn out and very public airing of the 12 complaints lodged against him with the Australian Medical Board.Today he announced that he is surrendering his medical licence so as to continue his work with Exit International unshackled from any restriction. Continue reading

Recently the ABC's Q&A program focussed on the issue of euthanasia. Some called it, 'The Denton Show' given the dominance in the time given to (and taken by) former comedian, Andrew Denton in espousing his zeal for assisted suicide as a panellist. Audience member, Luke Formosa, after a pre-amble asked Denton: "How do you propose Australia's euthanasia laws would protect the most vulnerable people, when the example in The Netherlands and The (sic) Belgium are showing the exact opposite?"Denton did attempt to answer Formosa's question in an oblique way but preferred to focus upon the claim that the 2014 Dutch report on euthanasia deaths had noted that, '550 newborn babies with diseases or disabilities were killed'. Continue reading

In a debate in Aberdeen Scotland a few years back I was confronted with a new and extremely restrictive model of euthanasia law proposed by my esteemed opponent that night. If my memory serves, the person needed to be in the last week of life and dying from a terminal illness; the argument being something like, 'Oh! Well! A few days earlier won't matter much!' I am paraphrasing here, my opponent was a retired professor and was far more articulate than that. Nevertheless, this was the shorthand thrust of the argument.I said on the night that I did not doubt the sincerity of my opponent but that we needed to recognise that there were a number of organisations involved in pursing legal change and that many of them had different points of view about where the 'line' should be drawn. Continue reading

'Name three people you would want to have dinner with?' An interesting pastime. Comedians, commentators, sport stars, philosophers, dead poets, there's an endless list of possibilities, all which, I guess, provide a window into a person's character and what they think is important.Here's a variation: 'Who would you want to provide you support and care through a terminal illness?' A comedian or a highly trained palliative care specialist?Okay, that's a set-up, and an obvious one. Anyone who has followed the recent public discussion in Australia on euthanasia and assisted suicide knows full well that I'm talking about Andrew Denton; a comedian turned euthanasia advocate. It's a great irony that only days before Denton's assault on our sensibilities last week we saw the effective gagging of Dr Nitschke - a euthanasia advocate who thinks he is a comedian. There's a joke in there somewhere with the punchline that goes something like, 'â�¦one of them is still occasionally funny!'And no matter what one might think of Denton's apparent epiphany, his understanding of palliative care is yet rudimentary to say the least. His faint praise of the discipline and its exponents while, at the same time, as I see it, trying to undermine public confidence by exploiting it's every possible imperfection, real or imaginary, is, at best, a matter of ignorance.When palliative care peak bodies tell the public that they "cannot relieve all pain and suffering even with optimal care", what are they really telling us? Firstly, they are being honest. Would you expect anything less than honesty from a medical philosophy and discipline built on trust and care? Of course not? So, when palliative physician, Ralph McConaghy, told the Q and A audience this week that 'perhaps 2 per cent' of patients are in that category, what was he telling us? When another palliative care physician, Richard Chye told Fairfax readers yesterday that 'complex pain can be temporary and treated' he was filling in the picture a little. 'Treated pain does not mean free of pain; it means that patients and families can still function and enjoy their limited time.'So, clearly the possibility that you or I might fall into this putative '2 per cent' is not necessarily the dark spectre of abandonment and pain that we are being encouraged to think that it is. Death ain't beer and skittles, we all know that; and when we think about it, none of us honestly expects it to be smooth sailing. And just as some people can carry on through their day while nursing a nasty migraine others, like me, head for the covers and the medicine cabinet at the first signs of pain. We're different, each and every one of us.We need to hold onto this idea of difference alongside notions of autonomy. Over many years of personal engagement with palliative care doctors and nurses, they have expressed many times to me their frustration at the narrow-focus of this debate and the false dichotomy created between palliation and a dignified death. I have heard from practitioners with more than 30 years' experience who have said that they have heard only a handful of requests for an early death. I have heard others claim that the rate of request is much higher. Given that we're talking about Australian services, then it is most likely that such differences are attributable to a variation in care standards or expertise. The reality is that we can and should be doing better as Dr Chye points out: "More Australians die in pain because of lack of access to palliative care, not because of palliative care. Euthanasia is not a substitute for palliative care. Good-quality palliative care is not going to work for everyone, just as heart surgery is not 100 per cent successful. But for the majority, a palliative care experience is a good one."Doctors need to take some responsibility as well. Palliative care is a small part of general medical training; we tend to focus on the saving and not enough on the right time to let someone go. Palliative care is not only resisted by patients who see it as an end game, but their doctors, who see it as a failure. It is neither of those. In palliative care we often help patients and their families come to terms with what is happening to them, perhaps we need to sit with their doctors as well."In light of that, Denton's crie de couer for the ill and the dying is best served and answered by better care for all. The suggestion that, because Denton thinks we should have some form of 'assisted dying' that doctors should somehow accommodate that to the abandonment of age old principles - and on his say-so - is ludicrous; as is the subtle suggestion that this somehow means that doctors currently 'look away' from the difficult cases in ideological abandonment of their patients.But, you see, it is all the fault of the 'Catholics' according to Denton. Again, while quickly passing over light praise he claims that the 'doctrine of double effect' described by a monk over 700 years ago is really to blame for palliative care associations not adopting some form of euthanasia or assisted suicide. Never mind that the principles of modern medicine stem back two millennia and bind a doctor to 'do no harm'; such harm, as understood by most - even today - to include killing a patient or helping them to suicide. The idea that a doctor "will neither hasten nor prolong death" is not a 'Catholic conspiracy'; it's just good medicine.Which is why it was entirely appropriate that Palliative Care Australia should encourage its membership to engage with Q and A and its audience in "ensuring that everyone has access to high quality care as they face their final days". You see, they do care, they do not turn away and they are not silent. They continually push for more funding, better training, more outreach and specialised services.In the final analysis, I'm backing professionals over comedians, the learned over Logies. Call me self-interested, but I'd rather be sure as sure I can be that we'll get the best care available when I or my loved ones need it. Happy to have a laugh Mr Denton but, no offence, when it comes to my demise, I'll take expert opinion based on years of compassionate practice any day. Continue reading

By Mollie Carlile AM November 2nd 2015If you feel able, please share this post with your networks, How we do Death is the conversation we have to have! Continue reading

By Craig Wallace (first posted on Craig's Blog: On The Record) I like Andrew Denton and always have.He is a funny, intelligent interviewer with a bucket load of insight and compassion. Continue reading

We hear a lot these days about bias in the media. I find it confusing sometimes that what seems to be claimed as evidence of such bias is really little more than the journalist expressing an opinion or following an editorial line. In terms of euthanasia The Melbourne Age newspaper, for example, has editorialised its support a number of times. It makes no secret of that. When dealing with their senior journalists as I have from time to time, I remain aware of their position but, nevertheless, confident that, even so, they will represent what I say accurately. I have never had cause to complain.There are clearly some journalists whose names, over the years, have become synonymous with ideals like, honesty, integrity etc., whose status - regardless of their opinions - evokes the highest aspirations of the journalistic classes. Continue reading

Stephen Drake is the research analyst for Not Dead Yet USA. This article first published in the Rochester NY Democrat and Chronicle on October 30, 2015. Recently, you're hearing and reading a lot about "aid in dying" - a relatively new term that is increasingly used in place of "assisted suicide." You're also being told that the issues surrounding assisted suicide are simple, with the only objections coming from far-right Christian conservatives.There are many nonreligious progressives who have actively opposed legalization of assisted suicide for many years. The organization I work for is a secular disability rights group formed 19 years ago to oppose legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia. Thirteen other national disability rights groups also oppose legalization - many of them for over a decade. Continue reading

BY TOM MORTIER article first published on MercatorNet's Careful! blog. In May 2015 Paul Russell, of Hope, an Australian coalition opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide, invited me to come to Adelaide to speak about my experiences with the Belgian euthanasia law. It is now well known that my physically healthy mother was killed by a lethal injection given by the Flemish euthanasia practitioner Dr Wim Distelmans.At the conference, Paul told me that someone called Andrew Denton wanted to interview me. I had never heard of Mr Denton, but Paul told me that he was very famous and that it would be a good opportunity to talk with him. So I did. I don't remember much from the interview, but he did ask searching questions. Continue reading