Good article. There are precedents like the Netherlands, Oregon, and Switzerland (Dignitas) that refute objections from naysayers. It's time Australia used the best aspects of existing practices to establish a new law. Tag every clause in the draft statute with where it came from and what the experience is at that source.

Every adult, considered rational and sane by an appropriate authority, deserves the right to a dignified, peaceful death at the time of their choosing.
Politicians, doctors, jurists, ethicists, philosophers and theologians have no right to dictate to the vast majority of citizens who desire this right.
These academics and professionals have a humanitarian obligation to make this last bastion of the human rights debate legal and workable in our modern society.
We must start to treat suffering humans with the same compassion and gift the peaceful death we give our suffering domestic species.
If V.E. is not for you, fine. Thats your choice. However you have no right to impinge on my choice of V.E. when I decide the time is right. (As long as I pass the rational/sane test)
There are far too many horror stories of slow, painful, undignified death, unsated by palliative medicine and equally undignified and often degrading death vis a vis degenerative disease of the brain and mind.
We must do better in this area, humanity demands it. Let the individual decide.

Good Article. Another major issue is the right to not be treated. I watched my father in-law slowly fall apart mentally after having a heart operation at close to 80. Almost immediately his hold on reality started to dissipate. Then the inevitable broken hip brought another operation and seemed to accelerate the fall to dementia. The saddest part was when he had periods of clarity and realised his condition. I hope I have the strength to say no to the extra year or 2 when it is my turn. I also intend to state in my will, when I reach that point that nothing is to be done to extend the misery for me or my family.

My mother has asked us to ensure her life is not extended unnecessarily when the inevitable occurs. My worry is that the doctors may not agree and prolong her suffering.

A matter of longstanding interest to me folks. Nice article. The debate continues to rage in many countries. For what it's worth, I offer a little food for thought. Forgive the academic references. . .old habits & all that.

Power is tolerable only on condition that it mask a substantial part of itself. Its success is proportional to its ability to hide its own mechanisms (Foucault, 1998:86).

Discourse is a domain of language use unified by common assumptions that provide ways of representing a particular kind of knowledge about a topic i.e. euthanasia. Discourses are conceptualized as culturally and historically embedded and socially communicated (thus depend upon shared meanings). The central argument and major difference between opposing discourses concerning euthanasia turns on their different social constructions of ‘persons’ and thus what it is to be human. In this way the discourses serve to polarize public opinion.

Discourse provide a ‘gaze’ from which to construct arguments (e.g. for or against), the basis of and for regulation. Here, it is Power rather than facts about reality that make things true. Knowledge is never disinterested and like glove to hand is always linked to power, discourse being one of the systems through which power operates. Power is then exercised via tactics and strategies. Discourse may overlap and reinforce each other or conflict. Because discourse is a ready made way of thinking, it can rule out alternatives and thus preserve a particular distribution of power. In this way ‘grand narratives’ (the official version of a story about a particular topic such as euthanasia) emerge. Those who oppose a ‘grand narrative’ create a ‘counter narrative’ which sometimes manages to ‘topple’ the grand narrative and replace it with its own version of ‘truth’ and a new grand narrative emerges until the next challenge. The purposes for which power is being sought will often be thoughtfully and extensively hidden behind carefully constructed discourse. Therefore, when examining institutions that appear both neutral and independent, it should be borne in mind, that within these, power combines with knowledge to produce ways of viewing the world and the people within it.

In debates about euthanasia, key discursive themes are drawn upon by proponents and opponents alike: e.g. discourses of religion, humanism, choice, rights, respect for autonomy, respect for life, societal attitudes, power and control, biomedicine, dualism, quality of life, dignity, compassion, care, pain, suffering & so forth. In addition ‘personal experience’ is used to confirm (or deny) that medical power is used to make decisions about who should live or die. Proponents and opponents draw upon the same pre-existing pool of discursive resources but tend to use them differently to undermine the other’s argument as well as help to explain and justify the view posited. Whatever the topic of discussion, it is a question of analyzing ‘regimes of practice’ i.e. the places where what is said and what is done, rules imposed and reasons given, the planned and the taken for granted meet and interconnect.

Dying and death are social processes guided by certain expectations. For several decades, death became hidden in institutions, became medicalized, routinized and thus out of the control of individuals. Because of progress in medical technology the nature of the dying process is open to interference and therefore not only is it possible to prolong life, but also to prolong dying. This raises questions about how we define life and death, and led to debates in which right to live versus right to die. Medicine, like most of the sciences, is knowledge transformed into power. The patient is in the power of a doctor to a greater extent than any other service industry (Nettleton, 1995). Doctors ‘select’ certain information about patients to reach conclusions about whether the patient is ‘dying’ or still has a chance and, ‘thus deserving of further medical intervention designed at forestalling death’ (Muller & Koenig (1988) cited in Lupton, 1995:48). Thus value judgments are made about who is most likely to benefit from treatment, indicating that power is being exercised.
Additionally, a power relation exists between doctors and patients in terms of differences in knowledge and the language used to express this knowledge. The paradigm of the diagnostic process and the idea of a personal care service generate a particular linguistic structure in the medical encounter. TWO languages operate: one between doctor and medical colleagues, the other between doctor and patient. Medical language is constructed to convey factual information concisely, without ambiguity, whereas lay language is structured for various social interactions with plenty of room for ambiguity. Because the linguistic structure draws a distinction between medical and lay patients conception of health, we have potential for conflict, ‘in terms of power, knowledge and status between doctor and patient (Turner, 1995:44). Calnan and Williams’ study (1992) examined lay views of medical procedures including life-saving technology. They found that people’s views differed depending on whether these techniques were perceived for use on respondents themselves, or the population in general, indicating a tension between fear of illness and death on a personal level, and global generalized beliefs on the other. Bear in mind that ‘lay’ health beliefs are grounded in people’s common sense ideas and ways of life which are influenced by social class, gender and ethnicity, and may conflict with medical and other perspectives.

Social factors that influence public opinion include, pluralism, secularization, rationalization, consumerism, individual rights (stemming from Neo-Liberal Democracy post 1960), and the ageing of Western populations. This combination means we are less united in our beliefs, more demanding of the health care system and more determined to have control over our own bodies. Simultaneously, we are less able to afford this (seemingly) as the cost of ageing populations has to be paid for by an ever shrinking group of tax-payers. (Note: unlike policy makers, I don’t lump all older people into one homogeneous group called ‘the elderly’!!).

Problems are confounded by scientific factors, i.e. in-vitro-fertilisation, embryo research, genetic testing, the genome project, organ transplantation. The problems are no longer medical but belong to the domain of medical ethicists. Through the popular media the attitudes of the general public are transformed; i.e. experts point out the new aspects of technological / scientific advances and present new interpretations of the events in question, for instance, in ‘talk shows’, ‘phone-ins’, ‘documentaries’, or heart-tugging follow-ups of people whose lives have been ‘saved’ or ‘transformed’ by some new technique. Guidelines are published for the professions, (e.g. re deep coma patients) and guides to ‘advance directives (very popular nowadays). Each new concept widens the scope of the previous one making it appear more acceptable. In this way, people are facilitated to conceptually re-organize their ‘thought-world’ (Oberschall, 1993:201). Step by step, a transformation of meanings occurs and eventually one societal construct comes to replace another. A concept that at one point in time seemed unthinkable, not only becomes thinkable, but right, proper and do-able. What is the driving force behind these discourses? Several possibilities, none of which stands alone, all of which seem to rest on a difference between what we can do and what we ought to do. Oh dear, you thought I was going to answer all your ancient philosophical questions in one fell swoop!!! I’m afraid that all the age old questions have to be reviewed, reformulated and given new meaning through discourse. The difference between right and wrong is being re-assessed and so we have a struggle for ‘truth’ between competing discourses. As facts can be construed, they alone do not enable us to decide truth or falsehood. It is power which makes things true, and as noted earlier, discourse is one of the systems through which power operates and this power is exercised through tactics and strategies. As every society has it’s ‘regime of truth’ (Foucault, 1984) it might be suggested that the struggle that is taking place between technology and humankind, is none other than the struggle for the ‘control of historicity itself’ (Touraine, 1981:7).