The Editor, The Age Dear Sir, Progress in human affairs has always been achieved by the courageous. Think Martin Luther King, the suffragettes, our own Eddie Mabo. The Medical Board of Australia may be doing their duty, telling Dr Rodney Syme to not do anything "with the primary purpo
The right to choose Beverley Broadbent is my hero. Her "rational suicide" (The Age, 2/4/13) was a beacon for those of us who passionately believe, as John Stuart Mill said so long ago, that people have the right of sovereignty over their own mind and body. Now there is hope that the m
John Baylis of Darwin suffered from motor neuron disease, a progressive condition involving degeneration and wasting of the muscles. He died of it on 5 March 2015. Marshall Perron was the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory government which introduced the Rights of the Terminally
83 year old Darwin man John Baylis died from the ravages of Motor Neuron Disease on 5th March 2015. This is an exact extract of his Facebook diary. Dec 15, 2014 - Aged Care Assessment Teams ( ACAT ) I have finally been diagnosed by my GP , as having ‘ the monster inside me ‘ being
THE following address was given by Dr Rodney Syme, Vice President of Dying With Dignity Victoria, to the 2015 Annual General Meeting of the Rationalist Society of Australia. Although I am nearly 80 years old and retired from surgery, I am still practising medicine. For over 25 years
Submission to the Victorian Parliament’s Legal and Social Issues Committee on End of Life Choices The Rationalist Society of Australia Inc. seeks to promote a pluralistic, multicultural and secular Australia. Government policies and laws should be based on evidence, reason and compass
Dying with dignity campaigner, Peter Short, died late last year on his own terms and in control, but he did not live long enough to see the introduction of a law that offers the same to all seriously ill Australians. Choice in end of life is an area of the euthanasia debate that needs
Shakespeare had Mark Anthony say “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him”. Well, I come to praise Peter Short, and to assert that no one will bury Peter Short. His name will live forever. Peter did not beat death, no one can when their time comes. Yet Peter conquered death – Caes