‘The only slippery slope is the one that I’m on’: terminally ill woman looks to euthanasia law – ABC News

A terminally ill woman from the New South Wales Mid North Coast hopes the state's politicians will support a new bill to allow terminally ill people to end their own lives.

Camden Haven resident Janet Cohen was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2015.

She has previously considered moving to Tasmania and has recently been accepted to an assisted dying program in Basel, Switzerland.

She hopes the legislation will be passed so she won't have to do either.

"I do hope that I don't have to take that option.

"It would be great, as in all other states in Australia ... if parliamentarians could pass this bill so that New South Wales residents aren't disadvantaged."

MsCohen saidopponents warning of a 'slippery slope', and possible exploitation of the lawsignoredthat most people wishing to access assisted dying were suffering the end of a terrible disease.

"The only slippery slope that I'm aware of, is the one that I'm on and other terminally ill people are on. It's a slope on which you just don't know what's going to happen."

Her local member, Port Macquarie MP Leslie Williams will co-sponsor the voluntary assisted dying bill which will be introduced in the NSW Parliament on Thursday.

The LiberalMPsaid the number of co-sponsors and the multi partisan support across the parliament was an acknowledgement that it was ahuman rights issue that transcendedpolitics.

"Voluntary Assisted Dying is an uncomfortable subject for many people," she said.

"The decision to co-sponsor the bill is not one I have made lightly but it does reflect the overwhelming support across our community for those who are terminally ill to have a choice."

Dying with Dignity's Shayne Higsonsaid there was great support for voluntary assisted dying laws on the Mid North Coast, with more than 80 percent of people in the nearby seat of Oxley supporting it.

But it was still unclear which way the local Nationals member Melinda Pavey would vote, Ms Higson said.

"Hopefully she's listening to her constituents because Oxley actually has the highest level of support in the state.

"If this is not something that she wouldn't choose for herself, I don't think that's what it should be about.

"This is about giving control to a dying person who is at the end stage of their illness and who is experiencing unbearable suffering.

"My own mum had brain cancer where the end stages is horrendous and it's so traumatic to be forced to endure just the last few weeks of some of these illnesses.

"This is about giving dying people a compassionate, last resort choice.

"Data from the National Coronial Information System reveals that one in five suicides of people aged over 40 in NSW in 2019 were by people with a terminal or debilitating medical condition.

"And that is just unacceptable isn't it?"

It is four years since a similar bill was voted down in the Upper House.

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'The only slippery slope is the one that I'm on': terminally ill woman looks to euthanasia law - ABC News