1. Doctor to unveil suicide pill - Globe and Mail(Canada) 2. Do-it-yourself suicide pill goes on show - Globe and Mail 3. Suicide pill presented at right-to-die meeting - Canadian Press 4. Death and dignity - Globe and Mail 5. Kanck's mail order suicide - The Advertiser 6. MP censored over euthanasia - BioEdge 7. 14 MPs back euthanasia - Herald Sun 8. Prisoners 'should be allowed to end it all' - The Sun(UK) 9. We should allow Huntley to kill himself - The Times(UK) 10. Labor's number is up . . . and it's 457 - Financial Review 11. The courage to tackle life issues - The Advertiser
The Peaceful Pill (Peanut) Project generated considerable media interest in the World Federation conference in Canada.(Items 1-3) Not everyone was pleased – see item 4 by Don Babey who claims to know better than the rest of us what the right to die movement is about – Deliverance Postmaster
1. Doctor to unveil suicide pill
Sat 9 Sept 06 Globe and Mail (Canada)
Lethal barbiturate produced by members of Australian right-to-die association MICHAEL VALPY
TORONTO -- An Australian physician attending a global conference in Toronto of right-to-die organizations intends to display this weekend what he says is the first do-it-yourself suicide pill -- made by a group of Australians with degenerative and terminal illnesses.
Group members, ranging in age from 55 to 94, have taught themselves the chemistry to make a lethal barbiturate whose main component is amylobarbitone, said Dr. Philip Nitschke, executive director of Australia's national dying with dignity organization, Exit International.
After a year of trials, they have synthesized the barbiturate into crystalline form. It is being tested for contaminants in an Australian laboratory. Once they get the laboratory's assay results later this month, the barbiturate -- named the Peanut Project ("peanut" is an American street name for barbiturates) -- should be ready for use, Dr. Nitschke said.
The 20 members of the group, all members of Exit, each contributed about $1,700 for laboratory glass and other material and set up their lab in a New South Wales farm, pretending to be a gathering of birdwatchers. As they experimented, they discovered how to simplify their manufacturing procedures.
Dr. Nitschke said their plan, after they are dead, is to bequeath their equipment and how-to knowledge to the next group of people who want to end their lives. About 100 are on a waiting list. He estimated that people in the successor group will need to invest only about $425 to manufacture sufficient amounts to kill themselves.
The Exit group's barbiturate belongs to the class of medications known as pentobarbital or Nembutal. Australian law prohibits physicians from prescribing Nembutal and its sister barbiturate, Amytal. But Australian authorities have not moved against Exit's laboratory.
However, the country's Suicide Material Offences Act prohibits anyone from giving how-to advice on suicide via fax, telephone or e-mail, which led to Exit splitting itself into two organizations and moving its website out of Australia to New Zealand.
Dr. Nitschke's association with euthanasia goes back more than a decade. Almost exactly 10 years ago he assisted the first of four people to die legally in Australia's Northern Territory after it passed short-lived legislation legalizing doctor-assisted euthanasia.
Bob Dent, 66, a carpenter who had suffered for five years from progressing prostate cancer, invited Dr. Nitschke to his home in Darwin one Sunday at noon and hospitably offered him lunch.
Dr. Nitschke recalled that he couldn't eat. His throat was dry. His shirt was soaked with perspiration. Every time he opened his mouth to say something, he realized his words contained some inappropriate connotation of the future that would be spoken to a man who was about to be dead.
With lunch over and conversation lagging, Mr. Dent suggested he, his Canadian wife, Judy, and Dr. Nitschke watch a football game. The game ended at 2 p.m. Mr. Dent said, "It's time."
Dr. Nitschke hooked up his homemade euthanasia machine: a laptop connected to a Nembutal-filled syringe connected to a needle he inserted in Mr. Dent's arm.
On the laptop screen were three questions Mr. Dent had to answer sequentially to trigger the syringe. Each said pretty much the same thing: "Are you aware that if you press this key you will die?" -- except the last asked Mr. Dent if he was aware that, by pushing a key, he would die in 15 seconds.
"He went press, press, press, pushed the laptop away and put his arms around Judy and died," Dr. Nitschke said in an interview.
Australia's federal Parliament soon disallowed the territorial legislation.
Dr. Nitschke's euthanasia machine wound up in the British Museum. He met the museum's director once and told him he appreciated the museum's broadmindedness in taking the device. The director replied that broadmindedness had nothing to do with it -- the device was merely considered some quaint colonial artifact.
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2. Do-it-yourself suicide pill goes on show
TENILLE BONOGUORE Globe and Mail Update
A controversial do-it-yourself suicide pill will go on show in Toronto this weekend in a move expected to highlight deep divisions in the right-to-die debate.
A group of elderly Australians gathered in a rural farmhouse last year to illegally concoct a lethal chemical designed to end their lives.
That process will be outlined by controversial Australian doctor Philip Nitschke this Sunday at the World Conference of Right to Die Societies in Toronto.
Dr. Nitschke said the extreme actions of that group of 20 elderly Australians — who pooled their money to buy the drug-making equipment and ingredients, and all took part in its manufacture — were likely to split the conference.
“There are those that believe to go down this route will lose public support,” Dr. Nitschke said of the elderly Australians' actions.
“Many of the people organizing this conference are of that opinion, and are nervous of the topic being discussed. But interest is very strong indeed amongst the rank and file of the right to die movement. This is something that has never happened in the right to die movement before.
“I'm really wanting the broader conference gathering to see there are strategies that are as important as the dogged pursuit for legislative change.”
Dr. Nitschke was dubbed “Dr. Death” in 1996 when Australia's Northern Territory Government passed a law permitting voluntary euthanasia.
In the eight months before that law was overruled by the Australian Federal Government, Dr. Nitschke became the first doctor in the world to publicly assist terminally ill people to die.
Since then, Dr. Nitschke said Australia has regressed to a more conservative position, and this year outlawed any electronic discussion of human euthanasia. The new laws have forced his pro-euthanasia group Exit International to move their website and help-line to New Zealand.
That is indicative of a global move towards censorship and repression of the right-to-die debate, Dr. Nitschke said in a telephone interview during the first day of the conference on Friday.
“In 1996, Australia could be considered a world leader. Now we're leading the world in going backwards,” Dr. Nitschke said.
“You can't even talk about one's options. That makes elderly people feel increasingly desperate.”
He blamed the increasing restrictions on euthanasia on “the religious right” and said the Australian trend was being mirrored in the United States and Canada.
But that was likely to change this century, when he said the right to die issue would become one of the world's main debates.
“There'll be many attempts to suppress and bury the issue, but it will continue on,” he said.
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3. Suicide pill presented at right-to-die meeting
Canadian Press The Province Published: Saturday, September 09, 2006 AP Photo/Darron Cummings
TORONTO -- An Australian physician attending a global conference of right-to-die organizations intends to display what he says is the first do-it-yourself suicide pill.
The pill was devised by a group of 20 Australians with degenerative and terminal illnesses.
Group members, aged from 55 to 94, have taught themselves the chemistry to make a lethal barbiturate whose main component is amylobarbitone, said Dr. Philip Nitschke, executive director of Australia's national dying with dignity organization, Exit International.
Barbiturates are drugs that act as central nervous system depressants. After a year of trials, the group has synthesized the barbiturate into crystalline form.
It is being tested for contaminants in an Australian laboratory. Once they get the assay results later this month, the barbiturate -- named the Peanut Project (peanut is an American street name for barbiturates) -- should be ready for use, Nitschke said.
Group members, all members of Exit, each contributed about $1,700 for laboratory glass and other material and set up a lab at a farm in New South Wales, pretending to be a gathering of birdwatchers. As they experimented, they discovered how to simplify their manufacturing procedures.
Nitschke said their plan, after they are dead, is to bequeath their equipment and know-how to the next group of people who want to end their lives.
About 100 are on a waiting list. The doctor estimated that people in the successor group will need to spend only about $425 to manufacture sufficient amounts of the drug to kill themselves.
The Exit group's barbiturate belongs to the class of medications known as pentobarbital or Nembutal. Australian law prohibits physicians from prescribing Nembutal and its sister barbiturate, Amytal. But Australian authorities have not moved against Exit's laboratory.
However, the country's Suicide Material Offences Act prohibits anyone from giving how-to advice on suicide via fax, telephone or e-mail, which led to Exit splitting itself into two organizations and moving its website out of Australia to New Zealand.
Nitschke's association with euthanasia goes back more than a decade. Almost exactly 10 years ago he assisted the first of four people to die legally in Australia's Northern Territory after it passed short-lived legislation legalizing doctor-assisted euthanasia.
» More Global National News
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4. Death and dignity
The Globe and Mail LETTER DON BABEY Executive Director, Dying With Dignity
Toronto -- While we appreciate Michael Valpy's interest in the subject of dying with dignity, his choice to focus on one small, sensational aspect of the issue does a disservice to your readers (Doctor To Unveil Suicide Pill -- Sept. 9) The right-to-die movement is not about so- called suicide potions or pills; it is about encouraging people to make their end-of-life wishes known through advanced care directives and, more importantly, press our elected leaders to enact legislation that ensures people's personal desires and rights are respected.
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5. Kanck's mail order suicide
The Advertiser WED 06 SEP 2006, By MICHAEL OWEN
DOCTORS, Lifeline Australia and the State Government are pleading with Democrats state leader Sandra Kanck to rethink plans to post out, to anyone who asks, a copy of a parliamentary speech which instructs people how to commit suicide. As of last night, almost 300 people had placed an order with Ms Kanck's office for a Hansard copy of the speech she made a week ago today.
Ms Kanck controversially used parliamentary privilege to explicitly outline suicide methods in a speech to the Legislative Council. Amid widespread and heated community debate, State Parliament voted last Thursday night to block Ms Kanck's speech from being published on the internet as part of the record of debate.
In response, an angry Ms Kanck, prohibited by federal laws from publishing her speech on her website because it is illegal to distribute information about suicide by electronic means, vowed to post out printed copies of her speech to anyone who contacted her office and requested one.
A spokesman for Ms Kanck yesterday said it was hoped the hundreds of copies requested would be sent out later this week. He confirmed there were no checks being made as to who were requesting copies or their reasons for doing so. ``We haven't asked people what they do or anything, we've just merely taken their order and promised to send one out when Hansard is completed,'' the spokesman said.
Mental Health Minister Gail Gago yesterday appealed to Ms Kanck ``not to continue to take this rash and irresponsible action''. ``I again implore Sandra to stop making copies available to the public because expert advice says the ramifications of her actions could be devastating,'' Ms Gago said.
HELP AT HAND * Kids Help Line 1800 551 800 * Lifeline 13 11 14 * SANE 1800 688 382 For more general information, several websites offer support. They include: www.alzheimers.org.au www.mifsa.org www.depressionet.com.au www.cota.org.au
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6. MP censored over euthanasia
BioEdge Tuesday, 5 September 2006 http://www.australasianbioethics.org/Newsletters/217-2006-09-05.html#suicide
MP censored over euthanasia Nitschke's solutions blotted out of record
Euthanasia is back in the Australian headlines again. This time a maverick parliamentarian in South Australia has used parliamentary privilege to deliver a speech detailing how to commit suicide. Sandra Kanck ignored advice from the state's chief psychiatrist who had pleaded with her not to proceed. The state Premier, Mike Rann, called her decision "distressing and unforgivable" and took the unprecedented step of expunging her speech from the parliamentary record.
Although it is now illegal in Australia to disseminate suicide information through the internet, Ms Kanck's speech was immediately made available on a New Zealand website by euthanasia activist Dr Philip Nitschke. In any case, it was basically a promotion of his methods of committing suicide. Nitschke's new book on suicide methods, The Peaceful Pill Handbook, will be released soon. ~ Australian, Sept 2; Exit International website
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7. 14 MPs back euthanasia
Herald Sun 7Sept06 By ASHLEY GARDINER
A GROUP of state MPs has publicly backed the right of the terminally ill to decide when to die. Fourteen serving politicians from all parties have indicated their support for voluntary euthanasia. Dying With Dignity Victoria vice-president Neil Francis said the terminally ill should be able to ask for an oral prescription drug to end their own life. ``At the moment, they don't have a choice,'' Mr Francis said. ``They are required by law to stick it out to the end.'' The organisation has surveyed election candidates and published a list of those who supported voluntary euthanasia.
MPs on the list contacted by the Herald Sun said their support was conditional on appropriate safeguards being in place. Legislative Assembly Speaker Judy Maddigan was the most senior of the Government's supporters. ``If someone is suffering from a terminal illness, and is in great pain, I don't see why they should be left in pain,'' Ms Maddigan said.
Liberal MP Andrew Brideson said it was an issue a mature society ought to confront. Bill Forwood, the Liberal MP for Templestowe Province, said people were entitled to make their own decisions. ``I'm very wary of assisted euthanasia, but I am comfortable about people making their own choice,'' he said.
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8. Prisoners 'should be allowed to end it all'
The Mirror(UK) September 2006 By Patrick Mulchrone
PRISONERS 'SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO END IT ALL' CONVICTS should be allowed to take their own lives, a leading prison campaigner said yesterday.
Mark Leech, editor of the Prisons Handbook, said voluntary euthanasia should be offered to those facing the rest of their lives behind bars.
Mr Leech, a former convict who turned his life around, was speaking as Soham killer Ian Huntley recovered in Pinderfields hospital, Wakefield, after his suicide attempt.
He said: "It raises the question of whether people in his position facing the rest of their life in jail ought to be given the opportunity of a way out.
"It's something I would support being investigated. "It raises the question of euthanasia across the whole spectrum - should people be given the opportunity to check out with dignity?"
He added: "First and foremost is my concern for his victims. Holly and Jessica's parents will have woken up this morning and thought 'Oh my God, here we go again' after years of trying to put this thing behind them.
"They still don't know what happened in that house that day. I'm sure they would want to know. Here we have - if we can be mature about it - a way for him to explain, to make his apologies and then end his life.
"I am talking about euthanasia. I am not talking about a policy of not resuscitating suicide attempts. This is a proactive policy, not a reactive policy."
Mr Leech said he would like to see a procedure similar to that followed at Dignitas, the euthanasia clinic in Zurich, where the patient decides when to die.
"There will have to be checks and balances. I would like to see a high court judge involved. The court would have to be convinced he knew exactly what he was doing, that his mental state was fine, his decision was irreversible, that this was his life and this was what he wanted to do.
"We have one life, it is our own life and prisoners should be able to end it with dignity if that is what they want. "I am not saying that a full and frank confession or account of what took place is a pre-requisite.
"It would be highly desirable to give closure to all parties concerned, but it is not a condition of the procedure.
"Euthanasia may well be giving a prisoner what he wants but if it brings closure and any kind of satisfaction to his victims, I'm in favour."
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9. We should allow Huntley to kill himself
The Sunday Times(UK) Opinion - Minette Marrin September 10, 2006
When Wolfgang Priklopil realised that the pretty girl he had kept captive for eight years had grown up and escaped, he threw himself under a train in Vienna. The wheels cut off his head. Difficult though it is to understand why a man should do something so terrible to a child, it is not at all difficult to understand why he should have done something so terrible to himself. It was the only thing to do.
From any point of view, he had no future. The girl was gone and the perverted obsessional world that he had constructed around her was destroyed. His private guilt, if he was capable of feeling any, and his public shame would never leave him; they would pursue him always, like the Furies. He could never show his face again, just as he had hidden hers. His time in prison would be long and terrifying; it would be a choice between solitary confinement and the brutality of fellow prisoners, who are merciless to child abusers.
All that was left for him was fear, loathing and enduring punishment. Even so, that may not be the explanation for his death; it’s impossible to imagine in any detail what his motives were. Perhaps in some sense he loved the girl and could not live without her. Perhaps he was trying, in a final act of cruelty, to punish her by his suicide, as he had often threatened.
What is striking, in all the prurient deluge of news and comment about the ordeal of Natashcha Kampusch, is that nobody has anything much to say about the suicide of Priklopil. It passed almost unnoticed. Usually in such cases there are clamorous outbursts on all sides, from the vindictive to the merciful, and all denouncing suicide. Some claim angrily that the criminal has cheated justice and taken the coward’s way out; others say that society has cheated the criminal of any hope of redemption. Others express horror at any suicide. Yet in this case the usual voices have been silent. There seems to be a tacit acceptance. It is as if people feel that it was for the best, or for the least worst.
It is striking, by contrast, how differently people in this country have reacted to the attempted suicide last week of Ian Huntley, the Soham murderer. Huntley is a man who is every bit as mad or bad as Priklopil. He captured not one but two girls and then sexually abused and killed them. Like Priklopil he tried to kill himself, with an overdose last Monday night in his cell at
Wakefield jail; he failed because the Prison Service belatedly managed to rush him to hospital where his stomach was pumped out. He has now gone back to jail where he faces at least 40 years inside. Not surprisingly, he has tried to kill himself before.
Yet the main public response, oddly enough, has been anger at the Prison Service for failing to stop him. The Home Office is profoundly embarrassed and has said that it will review the way Huntley is supervised. This is all the more ludicrous since it is only eight weeks since the Home Office published a previous review of Huntley’s first suicide attempt in June 2003.
The conclusion of that report was that there were “serious systems failures” and “corporate” failure at Woodhill prison where he was incarcerated at the time. The report also emphasised that Huntley was highly likely to try to top himself again or, in statespeak, presents an “ongoing significant risk of self-harm”. Paul Goggins, the junior Home Office minister of the day stated — how awkward it now sounds — that “the safe custody of Mr Huntley is an absolute priority for the Prison Service”.
But why? I don’t share the indignation of the prison reformers who think that the screws should have kept a closer watch on Huntley. I agree that the Prison Service should be better run and that Huntley’s two suicide attempts are symptoms of the general chaos that besets it. I also agree that for justice and humanity Huntley should be kept safe from the vindictiveness of other inmates and from any bullying by prison officers. But I don’t see why, in this particular case, it is necessary to take time and trouble round the clock to protect him from himself. I do not see why suicide is such an unacceptable end for such a man.
In some societies it was considered merciful to give a man the choice of suicide. I don’t know how common it was but all theatregoers and novel readers are familiar with the scene where the disgraced soldier is given a revolver and a bottle of whisky by his brother officers and left alone in the library to do the decent thing. It was considered less terrible for him, and for them, and spared them the ugly necessity of having him tried, humiliated and executed.
In some cases suicide is the decent thing, in effect if not always in intention. There are crimes that are unforgivable.
Huntley’s, like Priklopil’s, was one. There are crimes to which the idea of rehabilitation or of paying one’s debt to society is quite irrelevant. The cases of Fred West and Harold Shipman are obvious examples. It hardly matters whether one considers them responsible for their behaviour or not. If they are not, they cannot be rehabilitated, and if they are, that only makes their crimes more hideous.
I don’t advocate capital punishment for them — I am against it because I believe it is so bad for those who administer it and for a society that permits cold-blooded administrative murder. But I do suggest that for them death is a consummation devoutly to be desired, if chosen freely. It would also bring a sense of an ending to all those around the victims.
There is also the question of priorities. Questions of money always undermine a moral argument, I know, but I cannot understand why Huntley’s suicide watch should be an expensive “absolute priority”. There are all kinds of people in jail — those facing their first night behind bars, those on remand, the mentally ill who may have committed quite minor crimes and above all the very young — who are known to be at an extremely high risk of killing themselves. Should Huntley have priority over any of them? Most certainly not.
It would be both right and merciful to turn a blind eye to Huntley’s peephole at the graveyard hour and turn time and money instead to the needs of prisoners who have a chance of redemption. Whatever his motives, and whatever ours, let Huntley do the decent thing. [email protected]
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10. Labor's number is up . . . and it's 457
Author: Sophie Morris Date: 08/09/2006 The Financial Review
Tony Burke has proudly identified as a pro-lifer and a republican in previous political campaigns, but lately the Labor frontbencher has been called some names he does not care to own.
As the opposition's immigration spokesman, Burke has been at the forefront of a campaign that has attracted barbs of racism and xenophobia from the government and employers.
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone even accused Burke of harking back to the White Australia policy when he criticised the growth in temporary migrant workers from low-wage Asian countries.
What has Burke, 36, done in his first term in federal parliament to earn such opprobrium?
The former university debating champion has been prosecuting the case against what Labor believes are flaws in the government's skilled migration scheme, particularly regarding temporary work visas known as 457s, which are issued for periods of up to four years.
In times of low unemployment, a mining boom and labour shortages, these visas are popular with skills-strapped employers - including state government departments - who cannot find appropriately qualified locals.
The number issued grew from 49,855 in 2004-05 to about 72,000 last financial year. (If family members are excluded, the number of primary applicants grew from 28,000 to an estimated 40,000.)
But Burke argues that the visas have become attractive to some employers under the new industrial relations regime and that the government does not insist on adequate checks of whether an employer could find staff locally.
He stresses that Labor would not abolish the temporary visa scheme but wants changes to how it is administered.
"It's able to be used in a way to undercut market rates," he says. "It's also bad for employers who don't want to play the games using the 457s to cut wages because they're then competing in the market place."
Burke rejects allegations of racism and says a major concern is the wellbeing of exploited migrant workers.
This week the opposition and trade unions seized on two cases in which there appears to be evidence that employers have been rorting the visa scheme and mistreating migrant labour.
This tactic is likely to continue over the next year as Labor attempts to build on voter angst about the new industrial relations landscape by adding fears that an unscrupulous employer could use migrant labour to drive down conditions or cut local jobs.
Burke and Opposition Leader Kim Beazley announced a policy in May to prevent "cheap foreign workers" from taking Australian jobs, deploying rhetoric that appeared to be designed to appeal to blue-collar voters.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry reacted angrily to the policy, with accusations of "xenophobia". The Labor policy would force employers to prove before they sponsored a migrant that they had not fired a local from the same job in the past 12 months.
Burke is no stranger to controversial causes. He was director of the "Euthanasia No" campaign in the late 1990s, which succeeded in having Northern Territory legislation allowing euthanasia overturned.
In 1997 he was campaign manager for the Australian Republican Movement, which had less success.
Through these two ventures he forged what he has described as "good working relationships" with two men who are now his political opponents - pro-life Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews and republican Liberal MP Malcolm Turnbull.
Burke was honing his political skills long before these two campaigns, while studying Arts Law at the University of Sydney.
In his first speech in the House of Representatives, he wryly conceded that, as a former lawyer, union official (for the Shop
Distributive and Allied Employees Association), staffer and state MP, he represented four jobs that many considered were over-represented in parliament.
In his mid 20s, he was the national president of Young Labor, graduating to work for right- wing powerbroker Graham Richardson (1993-94) and for his successor in the Senate, Michael Forshaw (1994-95).
Forshaw, who is still in the Senate, says his old staffer has impressed in his first term in federal parliament and no doubt has a bright future. For one thing, he is well connected with the powerful NSW Right of the ALP.
"He's clearly well-regarded in our state and down here in Canberra," Forshaw says. "If we win the next election, Tony will be a senior member of cabinet."
Forshaw says Burke's moral values influence how he works, but he's not one to gloat about it.
"He's not out there trumpeting those things like some other politicians who want to make mileage out of them," he says.
Burke appears uncomfortable talking about himself and when asked if Catholicism has informed his pro-life views, which include opposing therapeutic cloning of embryos and staunch opposition to capital punishment, he says, "I guess I'm not easily pigeon-holed."
On entering federal parliament in 2004, he went straight to the front bench as small business spokesman, but it is since he took the immigration portfolio in mid-2005 that his profile has risen.
The bungling of the Cornelia Rau and Vivian Solon cases handed him issues to run with, followed by the government's failed bid to excise the mainland and send all boat people to Nauru.
But it is the s457 visa issue that he and Labor will be pursuing in the lead-up to the election.
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11. The courage to tackle life issues
The Advertiser TUE 12 SEP 2006,
I HAVE read most of your editorial, letters and reports about Democrat MP Sandra Kanck's debate about euthanasia. In my opinion, her stance is courageous because people feel better about discussing new life issues than the subject of death and dying.
As a result, over the past 10 years, we have been inundated with ``The Dolly the sheep saga''. As a contrast, I am pleased that a politician has stood and begun to confront the essential life issues of autonomy or paternalism in human terms, such as dignity, compassion, care or love and support for each other.
As a health carer, it has become clear to me that after all of the technological interventions required to assess and reach the diagnosis, it is the person left with the multiple-organ system failure who is left to decide when to let go and whether or not their bank balance is enough to pay for another day. Death is the end of care, care of the self to keep on going, inattention by others who provide the care or just plain scarce resources to make life affordable.
When it comes to the allocation of scarce resources, time and again we see the money allocated to new life issues, such as nine-month rather than octogenarial issues. For these reasons and many others that I do not have the space to include, I close my letter with admiration to Sandra for persisting with these contentious issues despite the persistent flak she has received. I wish her well in her 10 years as a publicly elected MP either as a Democrat or an independent member of Parliament. * JASMINE SPENCE, Dulwich.
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Religious minority
The Advertiser FRI 08 SEP 2006,
REGARDING the editorial (Kanck doesn't stand above the law (The Advertiser, yesterday), Sandra Kanck did not stand above the law at all. The invoking of this democratic safety valve, parliamentary privilege, was an attempt to help give every citizen the right to have autonomy over his or her own death. Immovable conservative religious politicians have hijacked this fundamental right. They are acting against the will of the people, against all the evidence and in opposition to common sense.
It is drawing an extremely long bow to suggest Sandra Kanck had any motive, other than pricking the consciences of our representatives in an effort to have them actually represent their constituents regarding the introduction of legal voluntary euthanasia.
The public should also be aware that the objectives of those crying the loudest over this non- event are those who, by default, are a part of a minority, who also consider that they really do stand above the law. * DAVID NICHOLLS, Maitland. Section: OPINION
END
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