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.


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