🚀 go-pugleaf

bpl@lynx.co.nz (Brian Paul Lilburn) wrote:

>In article <5h0890$h7d$1@euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au>, d-moss@adfa.oz.au (David Moss) says:
>>
>>Euthanasia Lobby exposes RTI Dangers
>>

>>
>>"Yet in the letters and recordings in the publicity, the patients
>>indicate they had no intention of ending this suffering in the near
>>future, unless forced to do so by the impending Senate vote."
>>
>What a lot of rubbish! (Most of it snipped.)

You may think so Brian, but the facts are otherwise.
I have a video recording of pro-euthanasia lobbyists faxing out copies
of the letters, and listening to the audio recordings. I could hardly
believe the lengths to which the pro-euthanasia lobby would go myself.

> *Who* is going to
>force any patient who has signed with their doctor that when
>the time is ripe they want help - *who* is going to force them
>to go to their deaths, if they're still able to make decisions
>for themselves and don't feel they are ready for receiving
>the help, despite whatever the level of pain and discomfort
>they are in for the time being. Who, or what?

Its not a matter of forcing people to their deaths, although it is a
macabre possibility.* Its a matter of how badly the RTI Act is already
being misused.

The RTI Act was purportedly enacted so that a terminally ill person
suffering intolerable pain or suffereing could be assisted to commit
suicide.

What we have seen however, is the Act being used as an insurance
policy against fear. People who are obviously willing to tolerate
their level of pain or suffering are "signing up" to be killed later,
if the need arises.

An even more macabre possibility is that a patient's mental condition
may deteriorate to the point of incompetence, leading to the situation
that a person could be killed who is clearly incompetent to take a
life and death decision. The fact they took out an "insurance policy"
against fear earlier in their illness is no consolation, they would be
unable to reasonably agree at the end, yet they could be killed
anyway.

If you read the RTI Act you will learn that a signed request is like a
sword of Damocles. It is not up to the patient when or how it drops,
but the doctor. The patient does not even have to be conscious.

Pre-signed RTI certificates are nothing more than an insurance policy
against fear, yet not only are they open to the most horrendous
misuse, but we are currently seeing terminal patients' fear used as a
hostage for political leverage. 

The morals and scruples of the pro-euthanasia lobby have been exposed
at last, and its not a pretty sight. I wouldn't be surprised if a few
of the more honest Senators who oppose the Andrews Bill for "states
rights" reasons will now support it, just to be certain of ending such
a dangerous and badly misused law.

David Moss,
personal opinion only.

* There have been cases where relatives of an incompetent person have
refused to allow the person to recieve food or water via a feeding
tube even though the person themselves asks for food and water. There
is a legal possibility that relatives may force the "assisted suicide"
of an incompetent patient with a pre-signed certificate even though
that person tries to rescind the request after becoming incompetent.
Chilling, horrible, impossible ?  Until recently so was legal patient
killing itself.








>Brian


David Moss,
personal opinion only.
try http://www.adfa.oz.au/~adm/politics for Australian Politics