X-Message-Number: 2209
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
From:  (Peter Alexander Merel)
Subject: New 'right to die' law in Australia
Message-ID: <>
Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 04:40:50 GMT

>From 'The Sydney Morning Herald', May 6, front page:

"Doctors in NSW [the most populous Australian state] will no longer be
bound by law to resuscitate a person "no matter what" under Australia's 
first guidelines on dying, introduced yesterday."

"The intermim guidelines ... are to be implemented at all hospitals and will
give patients the right to decide whether they are kept on life-support 
systems when treatment would be futile."

"Treatment is deemed futile if it would leave the patient with continuing
pain, an unacceptable quality of life, or maintain a vegetative state with no
possibility of reversal."

"Life-supporting treatment is defined as including cardiopulmonary 
resuscitation, ventilation, surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, physiotherapy,
renal dialysis and the administration of medication"

"The Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney ... said the guidelines
... highlight the rights of an individual to determine what happens to him."

"... The guidelines specify that patients facing an inevitable death have the
right to discuss and make decisions about all aspects of their care - including
forgoing treatment that would prolong their life."

"Their doctors, families, or advocates (in cases where the patient is unable 
to communicate his or her wishes) can also participate in deciding whether
life-prolonging treatments should be used, but the patient's wishes are
overriding."

"... people ... [should] make an "advance directive", signed and witnessed,
detailing their wishes in relation to treatment."

"Under the guidelines, a patient who suffers a heart attack will not have
cardiopulmonary resuscitation "if it is contrary to the patient's wishes
or expectations [or] is likely to prolong suffering and is clearly medically
futile.""

"... the guidelines did not cover euthenasia, which is illegal in NSW"

--

It is probably worth noting that Australia, unlike certain places like the 
USA, does not prohibit entry of people with AIDS or other terminal illnesses. 
Someone who wanted to "die" here would probably be able to get a tourist 
visa and soak up the sunshine for four or five months beforehand, if they
could time it right. Of course there are no local cryonics organisations or 
suspension teams, but I imagine that appropriate preliminaries for suspension
could be arranged with some considerable amount of trouble.

Hmm. Actually, Australia would be a pretty good place for the cold room
that's being debated. It's smack dab in the middle of a tectonic plate, so
it experiences no earthquakes or volcanoes, it's sparsely populated and
politically stable - no wars or civil unrest in the forseeable future - and 
it has a first world economy capable of providing technical support to a 'cold 
room' installation. 

Food for thought.

-- 

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