During a discussion on Q&A, author Nikki Gemmell said 80% of Australians and up to 70% of Catholics and Anglicans support euthanasia laws. Is that right?
There is no shortage of dubious slippery slope arguments.
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People are right to be skeptical when it comes to many slippery slope arguments used by those against euthanasia. But some of them are valid and shouldn’t be dismissed as ‘bullshit’.
Route forward? Oregon was the first place to license doctors to supply lethal drugs to terminally-ill people.
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One paper reported that between 0.3% to 4.6% of all deaths are reported as euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide in jurisdictions where they are legal.
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Ben White, Queensland University of Technology; Andrew McGee, Queensland University of Technology, and Lindy Willmott, Queensland University of Technology
Victoria stands a chance of becoming the first Australian jurisdiction in 20 years, and the first ever Australian state, to have an assisted dying law.
California now allows terminally ill people to end their lives. In the 2,800-year-old Jain tradition, individuals can choose to fast unto death, when it makes no sense to prolong suffering.
California is the fifth state to legalize aid in dying.
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Why have Americans become more receptive to aid in dying, a practice that was rejected throughout the United States until Oregon changed course in 1997?
Campaigners stand outside the US Supreme Court in 2005.
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Intuitively, we believe offering someone options automatically expands their freedom. But that isn’t always true. Sometimes, more options can lead to less freedom.
Euthanasia proponents often express incredulity that in a supposedly humane society, the ‘right to die with dignity’ remains unsupported by law.
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Proponents of legalising euthanasia claim it’s needed to ensure dying patients don’t experience unbearable suffering. But in fact, this is the one setting in which law change isn’t needed.
Australian parliaments continue to resist legalising euthanasia or its cousin, assisted suicide.
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The Australian public supports legalising euthanasia and bills are introduced into state parliaments every year. Yet governments continue to resist legalising euthanasia or assisted suicide.
ABC’s Q&A subtly but importantly changed the nature of the euthanasia debate.
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It’s possible the difference between Australia and the Netherlands (where euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal) lies more in the way we think about what we are doing than what actually happens.
Where next for supporters of end-of-life choice?
Robert Kneschke
The debate on the role of law and ethics at the end of life is an enduring one. In 1971, such debate was focused almost solely upon the Netherlands when a rural physician called Truus Postma facilitated…
Ethical issues are rife in medicine. Arguments about abortion, organ donation and euthanasia regularly take their turn in the headlines, normally prompted by media scare-stories or an arising controversy…