X-Message-Number: 7046 Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 14:43:20 +1000 (EAST) From: (Kitty te Riele) Subject: Australia update Sydney Morning Herald October 17, 1996 'Five good reasons' for the case not to die By NATHAN VASS In her worst hours, Cecily Miner wanted to die. She wanted the right to die with dignity, the right to die to end her pain. Years later, the pain has not subsided. But the desire to die has. "I am happy I am not dead. I am happier now than I have ever been. I am surer of myself and the world seems clearer, richer and simpler and I make a contribution. I am a force to be reckoned with," Ms Miner said yesterday. She and four other people were named in the NSW Parliament yesterday as five good reasons why euthanasia should not be legalised in NSW. Ms Miner, a chronic sufferer of the auto-immune illness Behcet's disease, is now strongly opposed to giving mercy killing approval in law. She conceded that was not always the case in the early years after her condition was diagnosed - only after consultations with 60 different doctors. "There were many occasions when I was so incapacitated that I would crawl from my bedroom to the bathroom and I stayed there for two hours while all of my bodily functions betrayed me. These were the times when every joint was inflamed, when my jaw was paralysed and I couldn't open my mouth. Yes, I wanted very much to die at these times. "I am still in constant pain. But I don't want to be cast aside or killed because my illness makes me uninteresting, or difficult or expensive or embarrassing. "I know that the advocates of euthanasia would deny that is the message they are giving to people like me, but they are wrong. I know exactly what their message feels like, I know what their message sounds like: it sounds like a threat." Her story and those of four other people who achieved unlikely reprieves from what seemed like certain deaths were used by anti-euthanasia lobbyists to illustrate the case against legalising mercy killing. But the emotive card was played by both sides of the argument. The pro-euthanasia Liberal MP, Mr Jeremy Kinross, read to Parliament from a suicide note left by one of his male constituents who could no longer cope with the pain of his terminal illness. The man concluded the letter to his family: "Worst of all, I didn't want to make those I love suffer and the knowledge that I would bring awful grief to those I least wanted to hurt in the world compounded my own misery unbelievably. "I'm so sorry. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. I wish you could see death as I did, as a release, something to celebrate, and be happy for me. I would rather have thrown a raging party and simply have disappeared at dawn with your blessings and understanding." ----------------------------------------------- Euthanasia stirs emotions of MPs By MARK RILEY Several State MPs struggled with their emotions yesterday as they recounted the deaths of family members and friends during an extraordinary debate on voluntary euthanasia. The normally stunt-driven political atmosphere of the NSW Parliament gave way to rare glimpses of personal sensitivity as a procession of 45 members put on record their positions on mercy killings. In a historical departure from parliamentary practice, the debate was led by two non-parliamentarians - the former Federal Health Minister, Professor Peter Baume, speaking in favour of the Northern Territory's laws and a representative of the Euthanasia-No group, Mr Tony Burke, heading the opposing argument. The Member for Parramatta, Ms Gabrielle Harrison, spoke against euthanasia while relaying the emotional pain of watching her young husband, Mr Andrew Ziolkowski, die after a long battle with cancer. "There was total emotional trauma not only for us but for the whole extended family and close friends," she said. "That was not the time to be making a decision about whether to live or die." Opposition frontbencher Mr Stephen O'Doherty said if voluntary euthanasia had been legal when his two-year-old son, Daniel, was born he may have been given the unwanted option of ending the boy's life during his battle with meningitis as a newborn baby. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7046