GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: Euthanasia in Australia, 20 years on

sábado, 24 de septiembre de 2016

Euthanasia in Australia, 20 years on

Euthanasia in Australia, 20 years on

by Xavier Symons | 24 Sep 2016 |

Pro-euthanasia advocates are calling on Australian legislatures to legalise assisted dying, as the country marks 20^th anniversary of the first death of a patient by legal euthanasia.

On the 22^nd of September 1996 a 66-year-old Australian man was euthanised under a short lived law in the thinly-populated Northern Territory.

Bob Dent, a carpenter suffering from prostate cancer, ended his life with a lethal injection administered by euthanasia advocate, Dr Philip Nitschke.

The euthanasia law in the Northern Territory was quashed by the Federal Government in 1997 after Dr Nitschke had helped four people to die.

Euthanasia advocates are now calling on States to change the law, saying that evidence from various countries proves that euthanasia is safe.

“We now have 10 countries around the world where assistance to die is legal and their collective populations are over 100 million”, euthanasia supporter Marshall Perron told The Australian this week. As Chief Minister of the Northern Territory Perron drove the campaign to legalise assisted dying.

Until last year the cause of legalised euthanasia was identified with the antics of Dr Nitschke. He has a number of elderly supporters and an organisation, Exit International, which finances his activities in Australia and overseas. But he alienated other euthanasia campaigners and made the cause sound both ridiculous and dangerous. He runs suicide workshops, has skirted the law in helping people to die and has taken up a new career as a stand-up comedian joking about death.

Mr Perron told The Australian that Dr Nitschke had been a “double-edged sword” in the euthanasia cause. “Philip’s position today scares the politicians to the point where they, as I understand, say: ‘if you are pushing Philip’s position I don’t want to talk to you’.”

Now that Andrew Denton, an experienced TV and radio journalist, has launched his own campaign, euthanasia has become more respectable. He argues that no Australian should die in “lingering and untreatable pain”. “Australians overwhelmingly support a compassionate law, with strong safeguards, that will help those most in need at the end of their life”. He has created sophisticated media campaign with a website, speaking engagements and podcasts.

South Australia is currently debating euthanasia legislation, and it is likely that a euthanasia bill will be introduced into the Victorian parliament within a year.

- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/euthanasia-in-australia-20-years-on/12019#sthash.rU56agjI.dpuf

One of the recurring themes thrown up by assisted reproduction is the importance of genetic ties. Are we determined by our origins, or can we forge our own identity? Does it matter whether our nearest and dearest are our kith and kin or whether they are just the people we hang around with?

By chance I just stumbled across the astonishing story of a Hungarian politician whose life was transformed when he discovered his true genetic identity.

By the time Csanad Szegedi was 24, he was vice-president of Jobbik, a far-right, nationalist and virulently anti-Semitic party. He was elected to the European Parliament as a Jobbik MEP in 2009 and wrote a book, I Believe in Hungary’s Resurrection.

Then he learned his family’s deepest secret: he was a Jew. His grandfather and grandmother were actually Auschwitz survivors.

Szegedi’s life fell apart. He was forced to resign from Jobbik.

Suddenly he did a complete about-face. Under the tuition of a Lubavitch rabbi from New York who was living in Budapest he became an Orthodox, observant Jew; he had himself circumcised, adopted the name Dovid and burned a thousand copies of his book. Now he ismigrating to Israel with his wife and two children. He is interesting in joining the Knesset.

Szegedi is obviously a complex, intense man. He could even be a charlatan. But his astonishing journey does suggest that there is something to the idea that our personal identity is incomplete if it lacks the genetic heritage.