Category Archives: Euthanasia

All four of the Northern Territory's federally elected members want the NT to be able to make its own laws on assisted dying, but a bill passed by the Commonwealth in 1997 is still preventing them from doing so.

The NT's two senators Labor's Malarndirri McCarthy and the Country Liberal Party's Sam McMahon say the Federal Government should not have the power to stop territories from making laws on the issue.

Senator McCarthy described the move as an "unacceptable impingement" on the Territory Government's ability to make laws for their people.

"It is absurd that the NT and the ACT cannot make laws for their own jurisdictions, and that Northern Territory legislation can be overridden at the whim of the federal government with no consideration paid to the best interests of local people," she said.

"Whether or not you support euthanasia and I recognise the complexity and sensitivity of the arguments for and against it is beyond time to allow Territorians equal democratic rights to their fellow Australians by repealing the Andrews Bill."

This year, with Queensland, Tasmanian and South Australian Parliaments set to debate similar laws, NT leaders are, once again, calling for the territories to be able to legislate on voluntary euthanasia.

In 1995, the NT became the first jurisdiction in the world to formally legalise voluntary euthanasia and four people used it to die.

But two years later the Federal Government passed the Euthanasia Laws Act, which prevents both Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory from passing assisted dying laws.

Liberal MP Kevin Andrews, who put forward the bill, said he feared assisted dying laws could expose patients to "pressure, abuse and a loss of autonomy".

"The people who are most at risk are the most vulnerable, and a law which fails to protect vulnerable people will always be a bad law," Mr Andrews told Parliament.

Senator McMahon, who sits with the National Party, says the Andrews Bill never should have been passed.

"I don't think they should have done it at the time, the Territory showed it was progressive on this issue and well ahead of the rest of Australia," she said.

"It shouldn't have happened at the time and it certainly should be still in place."

Given the right regulatory framework, Senator McMahon says she was "fully supportive" of assisted dying.

In the 24 years since the Andrews Bill was passed, there has been a number of highly publicised movements to allow the ACT and NT to regain control of their euthanasia laws.

In 2018, the Senate considered Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm's bill to overturn that ban.

But that failed, with the bill losing 36 to 34 meaning the ACT and NT continues to have no right to legalise assisted dying.

Federal Labor Member for Solomon Luke Gosling says his office has been discussing a bill that would restore the rights of Territorians to legislate on euthanasia with Andrew Leigh from the ACT and other colleagues.

In 2018, Mr Gosling and Mr Leigh co-sponsored a bill to give the territories the ability to pass laws on assisted dying.

"In my first term, with the support of my ACT Labor colleagues, I introduced a private members' bill to restore Territory rights," Mr Gosling said.

"The Coalition Federal Government would not listen. But the fight is not over."

Speaking in support of the Restoring Territory Rights Bill in 2018, long-serving Federal Labor Member for Lingiari Warren Snowdon told Parliament that Territorians deserved the same democratic freedoms as other Australians.

Mr Snowdon argued that it was not an issue of assisted dying, but an issue about ensuring people who lived in the ACT and NT had the same rights as Australians who live in states.

"We Territorians should have the same rights as every other Australians," he said.

But the Commonwealth's stance on euthanasia has not changed.

Federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese voted against the Andrews Bill in 1996, telling Parliament "I oppose this bill because I support human dignity".

"The issue of Territory rights extends beyond politics, given it concerns the principle of self-governance and we would welcome a bipartisan approach," a spokesman for Mr Albanese said in a statement.

When asked for an interview, a spokesman for Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter declined, saying there was nothing to add further to the one line provided.

"There are no plans to introduce legislation to repeal the Euthanasia Laws Act 1997," Mr Porter's spokesman has told the ABC on multiple occasions.

Read more:

Northern Territory senator Malarndirri McCarthy says it's 'beyond time' for NT to make its own laws on assisted dying - ABC News

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Aw! Canines in dog wheelchairs have fun in the snow

Updated: 8:38 PM EST Jan 14, 2021

These adorable dogs will brighten your day.Paraplegic canines with dog wheelchairs played in a snowy fenced-in area in Minnesota at Home for Life, an animal sanctuary for animals with special needs."All of our animals even our paraplegic dogs appreciate fresh air and sunshine even in the winter months," the sanctuary said in a Tuesday post.The sanctuary doesn't put animals up for adoptions but instead helps serve as a way to avoid euthanasia by giving them a permanent home.The sanctuary said the dogs include Goofy, Program, White, Zavier, Mana, Noori, Soosan, and Beninabucket.Tap the video above to see the dogs having fun.

These adorable dogs will brighten your day.

Paraplegic canines with dog wheelchairs played in a snowy fenced-in area in Minnesota at Home for Life, an animal sanctuary for animals with special needs.

"All of our animals even our paraplegic dogs appreciate fresh air and sunshine even in the winter months," the sanctuary said in a Tuesday post.

The sanctuary doesn't put animals up for adoptions but instead helps serve as a way to avoid euthanasia by giving them a permanent home.

The sanctuary said the dogs include Goofy, Program, White, Zavier, Mana, Noori, Soosan, and Beninabucket.

Tap the video above to see the dogs having fun.

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Aw! Canines in dog wheelchairs have fun in the snow - WLWT Cincinnati

From the writings of the Rev. Billy Graham

Why are Christians opposed to people taking life into their own hands in the debate over the right to die?

Dear R.D.: Today with the ability to prolong life, everyone will probably have to face the issue of living on borrowed time. The right to die has joined the abortion issue as among the most vital and complicated concerns of our age.

There has always been a time to be born and a time to die (Ecclesiastes 3:2). Somehow we have confused the right to die with the subject of euthanasia (the deliberate killing of those who are suffering). They are not the same thing. The right to die is defined as the individuals right to determine whether unusual or heroic measures should be taken, normally involving expensive and mechanical means of life support, to prolong life in cases where death is almost certainly inevitable. Life is sacred and given to us by God; for that reason we must never condone the deliberate, unnatural taking of life. This is a major reason most Christians who take the Bible seriously oppose abortion and euthanasia.

At the same time, allowing the natural process of death to run its course is not necessarily wrong, when life can only be sustained by extreme medical measures. There is a difference between the prolongation of life and the postponement of death. Standing at the bedside of someone who has life-sustaining tubes intruding into many parts of the anatomy, we can understand how humane medical treatment could be viewed as inhumane. When the treatment of humans becomes, for all appearances, inhuman, most of us want the right to refuse such treatment. We take comfort in Job 12:10: In whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind? The answer is in God alone, for our very breath comes from Him.

Link:

There has always been a 'time to be born and a time to die' - Brunswick News

Thanks to the efforts of one Dartmouth animal sanctuary, an injured piglet named Chance has another shot at life.

According to Dont Forget Us, Pet Us sanctuary owner Deb Devlin, the baby feeder pigs mom likely sat on him when he was just a couple weeks old pushing his shoulder back and making one of his front legs shorter than the other.

When a baby pig gets compromised and cant walk well, the other piglets normally will start eating the other piglet, she said. They started biting him and everything his piggy brothers and sisters werent very nice to him.

The little piggy was taken in by the Dont Forget Us, Pet Us on Jan. 10 after being rescued from a local pig farm. According to Devlin, the farmer had tried for a month to heal the pig on his own, only to see no improvements.

To be honest, I wasnt very hopeful at that time that we were going to have a good vet visit, Devlin said. I really thought the vet was going to recommend euthanasia.

But the vet didnt find any fractures just a lot of soft tissue injury, according to Devlin.

Believing that everyone deserves a chance, the vet gave Devlin some medication and recommendations to help with the recovery effort along with an inspiration for the piglets name: Chance.

One major recommendation was making sure Chance remained both stimulated and comfortable. To accomplish this, Devlin reached out to the community for baby items, noting that shes used them in the past for other bedridden animals.

And Dartmouth delivered.

Within 24 hours, Chance had a bouncy swing, pack-and-play, and bassinet.

[The community support] was really incredible, she said. All those little items just played a role in giving him a better level of care.

So far, Devlin said, Chance has responded well to his recovery.

Just two days after his first vet visit, the piglet was able to stand on all four of his legs and has even made attempts at walking. And, after a cold laser therapy session this past Saturday, some of his swelling has gone down.

The medication made a huge difference for him, she said, adding that professionals will also measure his range of motion, muscle mass, and have him potentially exercise in water.

While in recovery, Devlin notes that Chance has really gotten along with her farm dogs. According to the sanctuary owner, the piglet loves sleeping on the dog beds with his new friends and is always trying to nibble their fur.

It really was just the cutest little thing, Devlin said. I think he just thinks hes a dog.

Since Chance was bred to be a feeder pig, he will grow quite large and will likely have additional problems with his legs.

For now, Devlin said, the goal is making sure Chance has the best quality of life for as long as we can.

He is extremely personable, she added. You cant help but look at that little face and not smile.

Continued here:

Injured piglet gets another 'chance' | Dartmouth - Dartmouth Week

The University of Tbingen has agreed to systematically deal with newly raised questions about the handling of anatomical specimens from the Nazi era in a recently published medical-historical research article. Rector Professor Bernd Engler said that the university will use all possible means to clarify the matter: Therefore, as soon as the allegations became known, I commissioned the historian and head of the current research project on the so-called Grave Field X, Professor Benigna Schnhagen, to keep the files in the archive of the To sift through the university in order to answer the open questions. Should the facts not be clarified on the basis of the files, the university will discuss with the city of Tbingen about a possible exhumation of the remains buried in cemetery X in July 1990.

In a recently published article, the British medical historian Professor Paul Weindling suspected that those responsible at the university were supposed to have buried the remains of underage victims of euthanasia in Tbingen in July 1990. At the time, the process was concealed from the public and also from an external investigation commission commissioned by the university. The remains predominantly or exclusively parts of the brain are said to have been buried together with other anatomical specimens from the Nazi era in grave field X of the Tbingen city cemetery.

The process researched by Professor Weindling also raises a number of questions from the universitys point of view, said the Rector. The examination of the files from the years 1989/90 including the minutes of service meetings of the then university management is currently ongoing, but has not yet provided any clarity. Engler said the university would use all available sources to investigate the whereabouts of the remains.

In 1988/89, the university was confronted with the fact that prepared body parts from the Nazi era were still in various medical teaching and display collections. The university then set up a commission of inquiry that was supposed to carry out a complete inventory. In its final report, which was presented in the summer of 1989, the commission recommended that all specimens from the period between 1933 and 1945 be removed from the Anatomical Institute and all other medical facilities of the university and buried in a dignified manner. The burial in cemetery X was closed to the public on July 4, 1990. A public commemoration took place four days later. According to a progress report, the University President Adolf Theis sent to the Baden-Wrttemberg Ministry of Science and Art on the day of the funeral, two urns and four marble containers with glass slides were buried. So far, however, it remains unclear what was in which container and from which institute the enclosed preparations came.

According to research by Professor Weindling, the remains of euthanasia victims are also said to have been buried on July 4, 1990. The preparations are said to come from the so-called Wiesengrund childrens department in Berlin-Wittenau, where a large number of mentally ill children were murdered during the Second World War. Doctors working at the facility took the brains of the killed children and prepared them for research purposes. The pathologist Berthold Ostertag, who works in Wiesengrund, is said to have brought the brain specimens from a total of 106 victims to Tbingen after the war. After the end of the war, Ostertag set up the Institute for Brain Research at the University of Tbingen and headed it until his retirement in 1964.

As can be seen from the final report of the investigative commission, in 1989 the university management obliged all medical institutes to check their collections and to report preparations that were alleged to have come from Nazi victims. The then management of the Institute for Brain Research had then declared in writing that even according to Professor Peiffer there were no preparations in the institutes holdings from the time before the end of the war. Accordingly, the brain preparations of the murdered children are not mentioned in the final report of the Senate Commission.

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University of Tbingen: University wants to clarify the whereabouts of anatomical specimens - India Education Diary

THE idea that a Joe Biden presidency will ipso facto return decency to government of the United States and that the exit of Donald Trump will somehow save American democracy is simply more political mythology. Until America's politicians start representing their electorates instead of being mere lobbyists for big business corporations, neither decency nor democracy will typify US politics or policies.

The last US President anywhere near to deserving of decent and democratic credentials was Dwight D Eisenhower and what he warned about the danger of the country coming under control of the industrial military complex duly transpired, thus justifying Ike's worst fears. There are no candidates presently visible within the Capitol precincts capable of tying Ike's boot laces.

Ian Johnstone, Peterhead.

DECLARE AMNESTY FOR IMMIGRANTS

AS the vaccination roll-out gathers pace, is there one potentially vulnerable group of people who will miss out? I refer to illegal immigrants working in the black economy, where their crowded living arrangements are likely to expose them to a serious risk of infection, and whose existence by definition is unlikely to be known to the NHS.

Is there any official guesstimate as to their number to give some indication of the scale of the problem, and is it not in everyones interest that an amnesty be declared to encourage them to come forward so that they also can be vaccinated to avoid them becoming in effect a third column in the fight against the virus?

Alan Fitzpatrick, Dunlop.

ASSISTED DYING IS NOT EUTHANASIA

I MUST challenge the letter by Dr Gillian Wright (January 2).

It is important first and foremost to understand that assisted dying and euthanasia are very different concepts.

Dr Wright writes eloquently about the subject of euthanasia, and I agree with many of the points she makes. But she is not addressing assisted dying, and it is confusing and unhelpful to conflate the two concepts.

Assisted dying aids a mentally competent adult who has a terminal illness and is nearing the end of their life, to choose when their life will end. Pursuing a complex process, meeting strict criteria and rigorous safeguards, they then have the liberty to self-administer a lethal drink, in a strictly controlled environment, at a time of their choosing, being in control at all stages of the process.

Euthanasia is markedly different, in that it involves the administration of a lethal medicine to someone by another person, and although also carried out in a formal, regulated framework, it carries more complex moral and legal implications and potential safety concerns.

It is important also to highlight that in the piece quoted about Ruth Davidson, she stated that she would only support assisted dying for the terminally ill.

Assisted dying is becoming more accessible in progressive countries around the world, and polls show that it has the support of the majority of the British population. It is unhelpful to the wider debate on assisted dying to confuse it, deliberately or otherwise, with euthanasia. The Assisted Dying Bill alluded to addressed assisted dying, not euthanasia.

I commend the short book entitled Last Rights: The Case For Assisted Dying by Woolason and Riley as an excellent, well researched, clear and accurate source on this topic.

Dr Ian Davidson, Giffnock.

* I COULD not agree more with the opinion of your correspondent Alan McKinney (Letters, January 5) regarding the end of life. To commit suicide all by oneself sounds to me rather complicated, but I have signed for up assisted suicide in terms of voting to have this legalised in Scotland.

It is already legal in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. There is more information to be found on the internet.

I am grateful to Mr McKinney for bringing the subject into the open, especially during these times of long-life existence. I suspect there are many more of similar opinions to ours.

M McNeil, East Ayrshire.

A DEBT TO PLEASURE?

WHAT is concerning me at the moment is not necessarily the lack of an orgy (R Russell Smith, Letters, January 8) but rather the cynical turn of mind that is being forced upon me by the activities of many political persons, and most of all the massive national debts that are daily mounting. I can do nothing about either of them.

I do recall reading the words of Ethel Watts Mumford which appeared in the New Cynic's Calendar (1907). She wrote: "In the midst of life we are in debt." If that is so then maybe a bit spent on an occasional "orgy" might be money well spent. Perhaps listen to the words in the Earl of Rochester's poem The Imperfect Enjoyment (a very saucy work) when the lady in the poem asks "Is there then no more .... Must we not pay a debt to pleasure too?"

Often there will follow remorse. As the poet Cowper said, "remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid" perhaps will take all thoughts of orgies from the mind no matter what Ogden Nash advised. As Mr Smith does not specify of what his own once in a while "orgy" will consist maybe he could inform readers, and cause a few smiles?

Thelma Edwards, Kelso.

SO, WAS FIFE GAELIC?

WHILE supporting Ian McNairs main point on Neart na Gaoithe offshore wind farm (Letters, January 8) I write to correct his suggestion that Gaelic was not spoken in Fife. While there are certainly other linguistic influences, the county abounds in Gaelic-based place-names which is surely evidence enough that the language was spoken there at one time.

John C Hutchison, Fort William.

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Letters: Biden will not solve America's problems until he gives up being a lobbyist for big business - HeraldScotland

Theres a 7-fold unexplained variation in rates of euthanasia across The Netherlands, reveals an analysis of health insurance claims data, published online in the journalBMJ Supportive & Palliative Care.

Its not clear if these differences relate to underuse, overuse, or even misuse, say the researchers.

The Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, introducing preliminary legislation in 1994, followed by a fully fledged law in 2002. The practice has been tolerated, however, since 1985.

Official data show that the number of euthanasia cases has risen more or less continuously since 2006, reaching 6361 in 2019. These cases make up just a small proportion of all deaths, but they have doubled from just under 2% in 2002 to just over 4% in 2019.

And its not clear if there are regional patterns across the country, and what factors might be driving any such differences.

To explore this further, the researchers analyzed national insurance data, covering all healthcare claims for the 12 months preceding the deaths of Dutch residents between 2013 and 2017.

They focused on euthanasia carried out by family doctors, which comprised 85% of all euthanasia cases, to calculate rates for 90 regions, 388 municipalities, and 196 districts in the three largest Dutch cities: Amsterdam; Rotterdam; and The Hague.

They also retrieved information from national datasets to tease out the potential association between any regional differences and demographic, socioeconomic, personal preferences, such as religious beliefs and political affiliations, and health factors.

Some 25,979 claims for euthanasia were made between 2013 and 2017, with slightly more men than women opting for the procedure every year. The average age increased from 71 in 2013 to 73 in 2017.

The number of procedures varied widely across the country. The regions with the highest proportion of euthanasia cases as a proportion of all deaths, referred to as the euthanasia ratio, had roughly five times more euthanasia deaths than in the regions with the lowest.

While this ratio fell over the five years, this was mainly due to a sharper increase in the ratio in areas with relatively low rates of euthanasia than in regions with higher rates.

In municipalities with at least 100 deaths and at least one euthanasia case a year, the differences are much greater, varying by a factor of between 27 and 17 throughout the 5-year period.

There were also striking differences between the three largest cities in the Netherlands.

In Amsterdam, in the three districts with highest rates of euthanasia, the proportion of these deaths was between nearly 12% and around 14.5% higher than in Rotterdam, where the proportion remained more or less static at around 6%.

In The Hague the rate of euthanasia in the three districts with the highest rates of euthanasia, the proportion of these deaths rose from nearly 7.5% to more than 11%.

Throughout the five years, the rate in the top three municipalities was 25 times higher than that of the bottom three.

Age, church attendance, political orientation, income, subjectively assessed health, and availability of community volunteers all emerged as potentially influential factors.

For example, in regions with relatively high numbers of 45-64 year olds, people were more likely to opt for euthanasia while in regions with a high proportion of churchgoers, they were less likely to do so.

Similarly, progressive political views were associated with higher rates of euthanasia while a higher percentage of community volunteers was linked to lower rates.

Higher rates of euthanasia were also associated with higher household income and good self-reported mental and physical health, possibly because the well off and the healthy may be more inclined to ask for assistance in dying when they do suffer, suggest the researchers.

After accounting for these factors, there was still a 7-fold geographical difference in rates of euthanasia across the country, for which there was no obvious explanation.

The unexplained part of the variation may include the possibility that part of the euthanasia practice may have to be understood in terms of underuse, overuse or misuse, suggest the researchers.

This is an observational study and reliant on billing data supplied by family doctors, so it excludes potentially relevant information on underlying health conditions and euthanasia procedures carried out by specialists.

Nevertheless, the researchers say: We think our findings have potential relevance for countries that have already legalized assisted dying Belgium, Luxembourg, Columbia, Canada, Western Australia and 10 US states and for countries currently considering legalizing it, such as Spain, New Zealand, Germany and Portugal.

Reference: Euthanasia in the Netherlands: a claims data cross-sectional study of geographical variation by A Stef Groenewoud, Femke Atsma, Mina Arvin, Gert P Westert and Theo A Boer, 14 January 2021, BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care.DOI: 10.1136/bmjspcare-2020-002573

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Huge Unexplained Variation in Euthanasia Rates Across the Netherlands - SciTechDaily

Sharon Cramp-Oliver has boxes full of her mum's old diaries.

In them, 77-year-old Liz Holmes wrote about the adventures of her three children, what made the nightly news and in the years leading up to her death the unbearable pain she experienced and detailed plans to end her own life.

WARNING: This story contains content that some readers may find distressing.

Liz spent 12 years battling breast cancer, had a broken back and suffered through two painful hip replacements, one of which dislocated itself in early 2017.

"This is hell on earth," she wrote, just months before she took her own life in September, 2017.

"I have nothing to look forward to, just pain and indignity," a later entry read.

Liz also wrote that if she could have accessed voluntary euthanasia, she would have.

But Liz lived in New South Wales, one of the six Australian states and territories that do not allow assisted dying.

Liz's daughter Sharon, who lives in the Northern Territory, said if voluntary euthanasia was permitted in the NT, she would have brought her mum up to die surrounded by people who loved her.

She decided to share her mother's story for the first time in the hope it may spark a new conversation about assisted dying.

"Wouldn't it have been nice for her to have gone to sleep with her family around her, rather than do that by herself?" Sharon said.

In 1995, the Northern Territory became the first place in the world to legalise voluntary euthanasia.

It was a private bill put forward by then-chief minister Marshall Perron, which came into effect in 1996.

"I had just always felt that a person who was was close to dying and suffering terribly ought to have the opportunity to advance their death, if that was their wish, to end suffering," Mr Perron said.

In the nine months voluntary euthanasia was legal in the Northern Territory, four terminally ill people used it to die: one Territorian and three others who travelled up to the NT to end their lives.

But in 1996, federal Liberal MP Kevin Andrews put forward a different bill passed by the Commonwealth in 1997 which overrode the right of the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory to legalise assisted dying.

Mr Andrews argued in Parliament that legalising voluntary euthanasia sent a "powerful message" to the Australian community that vulnerable people were "expendable" and not valued, and the law could expose patients to "pressure, abuse and a loss of autonomy".

Australian Medical Association NT branch president Robert Parker said while he wanted the NT to have the power to make its own laws on assisted dying, the AMA believed doctors should not be involved in interventions which had the "primary intention" of ending someone's life.

In its position paper on the subject, the AMA calls on governments to invest in and adequately resource palliative care facilities to improve the end of life care for Australians, no matter where they live.

"The AMA as it currently stands, cannot support physician-assisted suicide and it says it is an issue for populations and governments," Dr Parker said.

In the 23 years since the Andrews Bill was passed, there have been several highly publicised movements to allow the ACT and NT to regain control of euthanasia laws.

And this year, with Queensland and Tasmania set to debate similar laws and a bill on voluntary assisted dying tabled in SA Parliament, the Northern Territory's Federal Labor Member for Solomon, Luke Gosling, says his office has been discussing a bill to "restore the rights of Territorians to legislate on euthanasia" with his counterparts in the ACT.

NT Country Liberal Party Senator Sam McMahon has backed the call to allow the Territory to make its own laws about assisted dying, and said given the right regulatory framework she was "fully supportive" of voluntary euthanasia.

But former chief minister Mr Perron said it was time for Territory leaders to stop talking about introducing a bill and start actively campaigning for the NT to be allowed to make its own laws about the issue.

"This is not a voluntary euthanasia issue, this is an issue of the equal democratic representation of Australians. We should not be discriminated on the grounds of geography," Mr Perron said.

Mr Perron said as other states legislated assisted dying, it became more "absurd" that the Northern Territory the pioneer of assisted dying laws in Australia was denied the right to decide for itself about the issue.

Both Chief Minister Michael Gunner and Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro agree the Northern Territory deserves the same power as states to determine laws on a range of issues, including voluntary euthanasia.

Now, Mr Gunner is calling on Territorians who agree to reach out to leaders in the nation's capital.

"I need Territorians to help me here as well. Get on the phone or write an email to politicians in Canberra and tell them we want to decide this issue for ourselves," Mr Gunner said.

"People power can make the difference."

But despite the bipartisan support in the Northern Territory, a spokesman for Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter remained firm, telling the ABC there were "no plans" to introduce legislation to repeal the Euthanasia Laws Act 1997.

Judy Dent's husband, Bob, was the first person to die from a legal, voluntary lethal injection.

Speaking from the same suburban Darwin home in which her husband ended his life, Judy said she fully supported any renewed push to allow the Territory to make its own laws about assisted dying.

"I'm hoping that when more of the states have passed their own legislation, they will say it is not right to treat the citizens of the ACT and the NT as second-class citizens," she said.

"They should restore our rights. Not restore the legislation, but restore our rights to ask for such legislation."

Bob Dent died on September 22, 1996, after a long battle with incurable prostate cancer.

Judy remembers holding his hand as he took his last breath and said the pain "just disappeared" from her husband's face in the minutes before he passed.

"I almost thought I saw him smile," Judy recalled.

"But certainly all the signs of pain just disappeared. All the frowns, it at all just disappeared. And then he stopped breathing. It was very calm, peaceful."

Bob was a "strong willed" man, Judy laughed, and when he set his mind to something, he'd do whatever it took to achieve it.

And dying on his own terms was no exception, she said.

"I didn't want him to die, but he was going to die anyway, so why not let him die on his terms, with him in control?" Judy said.

See original here:

The NT pioneered voluntary euthanasia before the law was overruled. Now there is a campaign to restore it - ABC News

A racing pigeon that survived a 13,000km Pacific Ocean crossing from the United States to Australia now faces being euthanised as a quarantine risk.

Kevin Celli-Bird said he discovered that the exhausted bird that arrived in his Melbourne backyard on Boxing Day had disappeared from a race in the US state of Oregon on 29 October.

Experts suspect the pigeon that Celli-Bird has named Joe, after the US president-elect, Joe Biden, hitched a ride on a cargo ship to cross the Pacific.

Celli-Bird said the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service called him on Thursday to ask him to catch the bird, after its arrival was reported in the media.

They say if it is from America, then theyre concerned about bird diseases, Celli-Bird said. They wanted to know if I could help them out. I said, To be honest, I cant catch it. I can get within 500mm of it and then it moves.

He said quarantine authorities were now considering contracting a professional bird catcher.

The quarantine service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In 2015, the government threatened to euthanise two Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, after they were smuggled into the country by Hollywood star Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard. Faced with a 50-hour deadline to leave Australia, the dogs made it out in a chartered jet.

Pigeons are an unusual sight in Celli-Birds backyard in suburban Officer, where Australian native doves are much more common.

It rocked up at our place on Boxing Day. Ive got a fountain in the backyard and it was having a drink and a wash. He was pretty emaciated so I crushed up a dry biscuit and left it out there for him, Celli-Bird said.

Next day, he rocked back up at our water feature, so I wandered out to have a look at him because he was fairly weak and he didnt seem that afraid of me and I saw he had a blue band on his leg. Obviously he belongs to someone, so I managed to catch him, he said.

Celli-Bird, who said he had no interest in birds apart from my last name, said he could no longer catch the pigeon with his bare hands since it had regained its strength.

He said the Oklahoma-based American Pigeon Union had confirmed that Joe was registered to an owner in Montgomery, Alabama.

Celli-Bird said he had attempted to contact the owner, but had so far been unable to get through.

The bird spends every day in the backyard, sometimes sitting side-by-side with a native dove on a pergola. Celli-Bird has been feeding it since it arrived.

I think that he just decided that since Ive given him some food and hes got a spot to drink, thats home, he said.

Australian National Pigeon Association secretary Brad Turner said he had heard of cases of Chinese racing pigeons reaching the Australian west coast aboard cargo ships, a much shorter voyage.

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Racing pigeon that survived 13,000km journey from US to Australia now faces euthanasia - The Guardian

A hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, November 2, 2020(Shannon VanRaes/Reuters)

I have written here before about Delta Hospice in British Columbia, which has been under unremitting pressure by the government of the province including a funding cutoff only because it refuses to participate in euthanasia. It is now being forced to lay off clinical workers and faces eviction. From the press release:

The board of DHS deeply regrets being compelled to take this action. Tragically, as the video and the attached background document make clear, we have been left no other choice due to the Fraser Health Authority canceling our service agreement and 35-year lease. Fraser Health is about to evict us and expropriate approximately $15 million of our assets simply because we decline to euthanize our patients at our 10-bed Irene Thomas Hospice in Ladner, B.C.

To be clear, we accept that the provision of MAiD is an elective, legal service across Canada.Nothing in Canadian law, however, requires medically assisted death to be made available everywhere, at all times, to everyone. The Constitution of our private Society and our commitment to palliative care, bars us from offering it. Neither the board of the DHS, nor the vast majority of our patients and members want to change that.

Euthanasia killing patients is directly antithetical to the hospice philosophy as established by the modern movements founder, the late Dame Cecily Saunders. Indeed, when I interviewed her for my book, Culture of Death, she told me that assisted suicide denies the intrinsic equal dignity of terminally ill patients.

Not only that, but there is a hospital directly next door to Delta where patients can go to be lethally injected, so it isnt as if suicidal patients wont be able to obtain their desire to be made dead.

But that isnt the problem. Deltas stand sends the moral message that human life has intrinsic value and that medicalized killing is wrong. We cant have that. The culture of death brooks no dissent.

Link:

Canadian Hospice to Be Shuttered for Refusing Euthanasia - National Review