🚀 go-pugleaf

adm@ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au (David Moss) writes:

>>You're mistaken. It takes three doctors, plus the repeated written
>>assent of the patient, plus a lawyer and a judge. 

>As usual, quote time, from the RTI Act:
[snip - quote supporting the necessity of having 3 doctors]

>I find no reference to the need for a lawyer, or a judge to be involved.

Last time I read through the guidelines, these various medical opinions
had to be presented to a court before they could be considered legitimate. 
I confess I haven't bothered to see whether this is still the case - can
anyone in the know say whether this is still so?

>If you cannot see a yawning pit of danger in these provisions you have
>never observed the administration of "safeguards" in the real world.

I've stipulated that there's a risk involved, but I still can't see it
as a yawning pit. Look at the extraordinary measures that the three
people who have managed to avail themselves of the bill have had to go
through - it's not apparent to me that this procedure is going to get
very much easier to obtain over time.

Still, I would like to see the safeguards strengthened - can you think of
any arrangement of safeguards that would make VE/PAS acceptable to you?

>>David, you know this is not correct; a large percentage of the doctors
>>and nurses polled have admitted to mercy killing of patients, even when
>>the law would define this as murder. 

>Exactly. The people involved are well aware of the gravity of their acts.
>Perhaps we should legalise wife beating for the same reasons: it goes on
>behind the scenes anyway. 

There is no justification for wife-beating - it is a terrible cruelty. There
is every justification for VE - it is a great mercy. It follows that we
should be motivated to regulate VE so as to make it safe, and to offer every
possible legal recourse to the victims of domestic violence. I'm surprised 
you haven't seen this obvious difference between the two situations.

>Please explain exactly why people are going to stop committing these crimes
>just because the NT opens the door to legalised patient killing. IMO
>it is likely to make the decision to kill easier in such situations.

At present, a compassionate doctor or nurse risks prosecution if they
assist a suicide - but often they do it anyway. If it were possible for
them to follow legal safeguards rather than taking this risk and still
supply compassionate assistance, surely they'd do so.

In the absence of these legal safeguards a medico must euthanase their
patient without any witnesses, and without any evidence to link them to
the act - and so there is an increased risk that they may be mistaken in
thinking that the patient wanted to die. With the legal safeguards, the
only way this would happen is by the unlikely concerted conspiracy, not 
by a lone nurse's error in judgement.

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