Daily Archives: June 25, 2017

25 Jun 2017, 3 p.m.

NSW: Fewer than 30 per cent of doctors oppose the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill, according to a survey.

Most NSW doctors and nurses support a controversial medical euthanasia bill headed for Parliament, according to research that could prompt new debateabout the medical fraternity's willingness to accept changes to assisted suicide laws.

A bill, to allow patients to apply for medically assisted euthanasia in specific circumstances when older than 25 (an age when informed consent is deemed reached), will be introduced to the NSW upper house in August for a conscience vote.

Dr Anne Jaumees, an anaesthetist based in western Sydney. A poll of doctors and nurses into what they think about euthanasia has just been conducted. Photo: Dominic Lorrimer

About 60 per cent of doctors support the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill and fewer than 30 per cent oppose it, according to a surveyby market research company Ekas emailed to a database of 4000 NSW doctors it deemed "opinion leaders" and returned by about 500.

A smaller sample of about 100 nurses had support running at 80 per cent in favour of the law reform and opposition at fewer than 10 per cent.

A crowd-funding campaign forAnnie Gabrielides,a motor neurone disease suffererwho has progressively lost her ability to speak and is a euthanasia advocate, paid for the research.

"I'mconsistently hearing from doctors and medical expertsexpressing their sincere support of my campaign, but they're reluctant to speak out," she said.

The results suggest the medical profession and its famously powerful unions, not just Parliament, will be divided when debate on the bill kicks off.

The Australian Medical Association, which opposes changes to euthanasia law, warnedthe research could overstate doctors' support.

"It is likely that doctors with more strongly held opinions are responding to these surveys so caution must be used," AMA NSW president Brad Frankum said.

A national AMA poll of 4000 doctors last year found 50 per cent of doctors believed medical professionals should not be involved in assisted suicide, a spokesman emphasised.

But only slightly less than four in ten said they should, according to a news report.Combined with 12 per cent who neither agreed nor disagreed that left physicians close to evenly splitin some respects.

And anAustralian Doctorpoll of about 370 medicoslast year found about 65 per cent of doctors supported a change to the law on physician-assisted suicide ifstrict conditions, such as patients nearing the end of their lives and suffering "intolerable pain", some of which are mirrored in the NSW proposal, were met. About half told the journal they would be willing to help perform aprocedure.

NSW Nurses and Midwives Association general secretary Brett Holmes said: "The vast majority of nurses support change that enables medically assisted dying. Nurses know patients often choose more drastic means [to medically ending their life] in fear they cannot choose later."

A parliamentary report cited polls from the '90s that found nurses' support for euthanasia reform reached as high as about 75 per cent.

A dozen polls in the past decade hadfound between 75 to 80 per cent of Australians backed medically assisted euthanasia.

Western Sydney anaesthetistAnneJaumeesdoes too after working in palliative care for 15 years: "All their lives they want dignity and patients want that up until the end, too."

The bill is the product of cross-party collaboration and will only allow for applications frompatients expected to die within the coming year and experiencing extreme pain, suffering or incapacitation.

Safeguards proposed included allowing relatives to challenge applications in the Supreme Court,assessmentsby independent doctors and being subject to a 48-hour cooling-off period.

But Maria Cigolionisaid, while proponents arguedthe bill came laden with safeguards, it required no review of what palliative care patients had first sought before applying to end their lives or for alternatives to be suggested.

Overseas safeguards had been loosened so euthanasia could be applied forby people also suffering from psychosocial problems, Dr Cigolioni said.

"Instead of spending money on euthanasia reforms, we should be investing in psychosocial support programs to address suffering."

"People [will hasten the solution of death] when so many other things need to be looked at as the potential cause of that suffering," she said. "Once you change a criminal law [to allow] people to be killed, then [its conditions] can be extended beyond just being terminally ill, [and expand to include] the disabled and the aged and children, as it has in the Netherlands and Belgium."

The state budget last week announced a $100 million increase in funding for palliative care, something experts said would bring levels of NSW services into line with other states.

AMA policy recognises a divergence in doctors' views on euthanasia but it states doctors should not be involved in dispensing treatment that shortens a patient's life.

The Sydney Morning Herald

See the rest here:

Euthanasia survey hints at support from doctors, nurses and division - Yass Tribune

In 2014, Michelle Carter, then 17, used text messages to "encourage" her 18-year-old boyfriend Conrad Roy III to kill himself. Roy was found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning in his truck.

While the dust is still settling from this month's decision by a Massachusetts judge to convict the young "suicide texter" of involuntary manslaughter, the reaction on social media has been swift and savage.

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A Massachusetts judge finds Michelle Carter guilty of urging her boyfriend's death with text messages.

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An overturned oil tanker exploded on Sunday in Pakistan, killing at least 123 people when spilt fuel from the stricken vehicle ignited.

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Fears grow for 141 people missing in China after a landslide buried their mountain village in southwestern Sichuan province, with reports that only three survivors had been pulled out of the mud and rock hours after the calamity struck.

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He's not your normal headline act, but British politician Jeremy Corbyn pulled a huge crowd at the Glastonbury Festival in the UK on Saturday afternoon.

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A US war court has charged a Guantanamo inmate with masterminding the 2002 Bali Bombings.

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The Dallas Zoo has shared video of a gorilla that zoo officials say has a 'passion for splashin' and his moves look like he's dancing.

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A senior Russian politician quoted by news agency Interfax has said the killing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is almost a certainty.

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Johnny Depp who says he 'lies for a living,' has apologised for joking about assassinating Donald Trump.

A Massachusetts judge finds Michelle Carter guilty of urging her boyfriend's death with text messages.

On my own Facebook page, within hours of the verdict, I received nothing short of 100 irate responses to a hitherto gentle post I made casting doubt on Carter's legal, if not moral, blame for Roy's suicide.

I pondered if this was fair reason to use the very serious crime of manslaughter to teach young people a lesson in online behaviour? Clearly, Judge Lawrence Moniz thinks it is just the remedy, and in the virtual world of the internet he has many friends.

I'm not alone in worrying that the guilty decision in this judge-only criminal trial will have unintended consequences. For almost everyone involved in the debate over assisted suicide as a human right, we are all now much more concerned, and with good reason.

Mathew Segal of the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union saysthe conviction of Carter exceeds the limits of US criminal laws and violates the free speech protections contained in the constitution at a state and federal level.

Segalnotes that, for those having or likely to have "end-of-life discussions" with their loved ones -and let's face it, that will be many of us -Carter's conviction strikes a very real chill.

New York attorney Ari Diaconistakes the debate one step further, arguing that Judge Moniz has conflated "morality and legality" and it is this that makes life post-Carter a different ball game altogether.

On the facts, Roy killed himself.He was not with Carter. She did not help him prepare for his death. What she did do was text him, not once, but often. Was Carter a good person on the night of Roy's death? Clearly not. Carter's text urging Roy to go through with his death - "I f---ingtold him to get back in [the truck]" - is not how a good girlfriend, a caring friend, would behave. But does this make her a criminal?

Just as suicide is lawful in Australia, being a bad person is not necessarily unlawful. Diaconis is correct. It is important not to conflate the law with morality, yet that is exactly what Judge Moniz has done. The challenge of keeping subjectivity out of the Carter case was something the court was acutely aware of from the get go.

In allowing the case to go to trial, the Massachusetts Judicial Court tried hard to create a narrow framework for argument. The case was not, it said"about a person ameliorating the anguish of someone confronting terminal illness and questioning the value of life".

Nor was it "about offering support, comfort, and even assistance to a mature adult who, confronted with such circumstances, has decided to end his or her life". By process of elimination, the court tried to delineate "good" suicide assistance from the reckless, misdirected and dangerous advice offered by Carter.

However, from a legal point of view, like it or not, Carter's guilty verdict has created a climate where any response to talk by a person considering ending their life is now problematic.

This is especially as Carter had earlier tried to convince her boyfriend to get help for his suicidal thoughts. She had supported him in choosing life. Her later support for Roy's suicide was certainly the result of misguided youth. But should her morally bad-person behaviour (what some might call misguided foolish youthfulness) make her a criminal? I don't think so. It is this apparent sureness of intent on the part of the Massachusetts Judicial Court that makes Carter's business our business, even here in Australia.

For instance, can a doctor (or close friend or loved one) talk to a terminally ill patient (or friend) if that mentally capable person has made the decision to end their life? Dare they agree in writing -say via a WhatsApp message -with the loved one's decision?

The legal answer is now 50 shades of grey darker.

Ironically, the assisted suicide movement's very existence depends on our ability to speak openly to people considering dying with dignity.

While the 80-year-olds whom I deal with on a daily basis are far from the troubled teen who was Roy, our chats occuron the phone, on email and in our online discussion forums. I have always gone out of my way to neither encourage nor discourage a terminally ill person, or an elderly person, who seeks my "counsel" to take one course of action over another. What I have done for the past 20 years is provide a safe and understanding space for the communication to take place.

Tricky questions abound daily. Should I be worried about what I say in response or what medium I choose? Open discussion is an essential part of the decision-making process that can surround dying. A healthy society must insist that it should not be shut down.

Dr Philip Nitschke is the director of Exit International.

Support is available for those who may be distressed by phoning Lifeline 13 11 14;Mensline1300 789 978; Kids Helpline 1800 551 800;beyondblue1300 224 636.

Go here to see the original:

Euthanasia by text? Michelle Carter case impacts more than just free speech - The Sydney Morning Herald

PETER DORNAUF

Last updated05:00, June 26 2017

Mario Anzuoni

The documentary Autopsy focuses on the sudden and tragic end to Robin Williams' life.

OPINION: Recently I watched a television documentary called Autopsy, about the actor/comedianRobin Williams. It focused on the suddenand tragic end to his life, probing the events of his last days to unpick the reasons behind the man's shocking suicide.

It was revealed that Williams was suffering from Parkinson's disease, but that debilitating illness wasn't the thing which had brought him to the brink and pushed him over. There was something much darker going on deep in his mind which the autopsy finally exposed. He was suffering from early onset Alzheimer's, a humiliating and cruel death sentence for a man whose sharp mind was his identity as well as his bread and butter.

Williams was obviously aware that something was seriously amiss and intuited what it was early in the piece. In someone still with years ahead of him, it must have come as a devastating blow.

But what was most distressing for the viewerwas the re-enactment of what transpired as Robin Williams, the man who had brought so much wit, insight and laughter to the world, attempted to bring his life to a close, alone, without goodbyes, clumsily, painfully, violently.

Afterward, I thought how things could have been so much different in a more civilised society where assisted suicide was legal.

Currently, Parliament is to debate and vote on the issue of euthanasia. We've had to fight tooth and nail just to get some relaxation of the use of medical marijuana for suffering and terminally ill patients, so I can just imagine, in a society of roughneckswhere "suck it up"is the prevailing attitude among some, how difficult any move toward liberalisation is going to be.

Someone made the comment recently that the trouble lies with the fact that many of our rule-makers are religious, our prime minister leading the pack. It was expressed crudely and bluntly by Catholic adherentJohn Collier, who responded to the issue by saying, "Thou shalt not kill, and that's the end of it."

Such closed-mindedness demonstrates both a supreme lack of empathy for suffersas well as a denial of the right to choose for others. But more significantly it is a classic oversimplification of the matter. Reducing complex ethical questions to parroting some rote and formulaic code is lazy moral thinking. It is something the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre would have called"bad faith", a kind of moral sloth that attempts to escape from the burden of ethical responsibility on hard questions.

It also conveniently overlooks the fact that the god who is touted with issuing such a commandordered the wholesale slaughter of communities involving men, women and children. Obviously there is some wiggle room here.

Here in Hamilton, my own family is no stranger to the terrible suffering surrounding dementia and suicide. I cannot bear to think what must have been going through my grandmother's tortured mind as she took herself down to the edge of the Waikato River one morning and threw herself in.

It happened when I was 10 and all of it was rightly kept from us children to be discovered later in life. But how shockingly monstrous for my father, who never spoke of it once - about a mother, forced by the law of the land, to take such desperate measures at the end of her life.

Imagine an alternative in another time and place where she would have been able to tell her children she had had enough of life and they'd all been able to gather in a room and spend the last days together, hugged, kissed, said lovely things and said goodbye, and then quietly, with dignity, she, a doctor in attendance, could have gone to sleep.

But not here. You have to suffer to the bitter end here, albeit drugged to the eyeballs, or alternatively, hang, drown or shoot yourself, alone, forlorn and forsaken.

Some may want to cling on to the last remaining days or painful stupefying minutes of life. That is happily their choice. But others may not. At the moment, these people have other civilised options blocked off to them.

We have many rights, but the most profound one is legally denied us and so people, suffering, tired of life, have to resort to terrible means, by themselves, to terminate it. It seems quite barbarous.

What is legal already in eightcountries around the world should be made so here, surrounded with all the important and necessary safeguards.

A little boy of 10 would not have been able to handle those tragic events so many years ago. But my arms go out to you now, Grandma, wishing for a better place where I could have walked back with you, up and away from that river, holding your hand.

-Stuff

Go here to see the original:

The time has come for euthanasia - Waikato Times