🚀 go-pugleaf

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                Newsgroups: talk.euthanasia, aus.general, aus.politics

In article <3mo53D1w165w@orchide.dialix.oz.au>,
jan@orchide.dialix.oz.au (jan) wrote:
>weaver1@world.std.com (Frank Weaver) writes:
>> In article <5eo9bc$dvf$1@euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au>,
>> d-moss@adfa.oz.au (David Moss) wrote:
[snip] 
>> I was not aware that Scotland was part of the USA.  I do notice you
>> deleted my reference and URL to the Scottish case I used to illustrate
>> just how limited Jan's perspective is.
>
>Try a parochial perspective: what happens in Scotland and the US does not
>particularly concern us, since it does not provide us with useful impirical data
>regarding the possible effect of our laws, 

Chris Wake would obviously disagree with you, with his incessant 
ranting about an 'inalienable right to life' (found in no Australian
document, AFAIK, but prominent in an American one).  Ditto plaintiffs 
who challenged the law, citing as evidence the anti-VE portions of 
reports from the Special Senate Committee on Euthanasia and Assisted 
Suicide (Canada), the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law 
(US), and the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Medical Ethics 
(UK).  Or Judge Angel, whose dissent from the NT Supreme Court's 
decision relied almost entirely on English and Canadian cases, one of 
which I also mentioned (http://www.austlii.edu.au/do/sinodisp.pl/au
/cases/nt/supreme.ct/unrep836.html).

>though I am (personally) interested
>in what happens elsewhere.  This thread is primarily about an Australian Law
>in an Australian state 

But it's had precious little to do with Australian law per se. 
There's been nothing about the Supreme Court's decision, nothing about 
the constitutional firestorm Andrews' bill has raised among the State 
Ministers, only a little about the widespread public support for VE
in Australia.  Instead, you and Mr. Moss have served up the standard 
anti-euthanasia propaganda found in the Sacred Congregation for the 
Doctrine of the Faith's "Declaration on Euthanasia"  or copped from 
various American and Canadian websites.

[snip]
>> >So witholding life sustaining procedures in not an issue for us in
>> >Australia, 
>> 
>> 'Legal' and 'not an issue' are two very different things. 
>
>In this case it is not an issue because it is legal and so are NFR

Playing dense again, Jan?  I've given you citations to anti-euthanasia
organizations in four countries, Australia included, and one worldwide 
in scope, that consider it part of their mission to keep such laws
from being written, to oppose their passage, and to resist and revoke
them if possible.  Kindly provide us with one anti-euthanasia 
organization -- just one, from anywhere in the world -- that endorses 
patients' rights to refuse life-sustaining treatments with no exceptions 
and no casuistry.  With references, if you please.

>(Not For Resuscitation) orders.  Not all Australians, nurses included,
>are aware of this as I discovered a week ago when my (casual) assistant
>was horrified to see an NFR order in a patient's clinical notes.  Must
>have got her ethical training info from an American Medical TV show

More likely the Catholic Church.  See the above-mentioned "Declaration" 
or Edward Bayer, "Perspectives from Catholic Theology," in Joanne Lynn, 
ed. *By No Extraordinary Means* (Indiana University Press, 1986).

>and slept through the course.  This may have some influence on the
>high level of confusion regarding the RTI Act in the Australian electorate.

Haven't much respect for the intelligence of your fellow Ozians, do
you, mate?  How about some documentation for this?

[snip]
>It is not very useful looking at the arguments of the American
>anti-euthanasia brigade to gain an impression of their Australian 
>counterparts' perspective.

It's naive, at the minimum, to believe that the anti-euthanasia 
organizations are not swapping as much information, rhetoric, and 
tactics back and forth as possible. It is even more so considering how
much of the 'American (and the Canadian, and the English and the 
fill-in-the-country-here) anti-euthanasia brigade' is in fact the
'Vatican anti-euthanasia crusade.'  Or how much the 'secular'
right-to-life groups cooperate in other areas of their common
agenda.  But in light of their actual activities... well, I've given
two posts worth of examples on that.

Actually, I'm perversely flattered, not so much because you've played
the Xenophobe Card rather than stick to the subjects under
discussion, but that you've played it with such an obvious double
standard that I can't help feeling I'm the unique target.  

Well, my posts can speak for themselves -- not that they'll listen to
me, anyway. (I work so hard -- feeding them a good vocabulary, 
keeping their grammar neat and pressed, you'd think they could show 
their author a little respect, but noooo...:-)

- -- 
Frank Weaver                                       Encrypted email preferred
weaver1@world.std.com                              PGP KeyID: 0AAE84B
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                         Blessed is the Water of Life,
            by the grace of the holy trinity: yeast, malt and hops

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