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Q&A; recap: An emotional debate about dying with dignity

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It may have been Q&A;'s most succinct contribution ever.

"Bullshit."

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Communications Minister Mitch Fifield says the government plans to tackle the housing crisis in the upcoming budget. The panel later engaged in a lively debate about euthanasia. Vision courtesy ABC.

It came not from the panel, but from the audience, in the middle an emotional debate on Monday night about dying with dignity - and it packed a certain punch. Even host Tony Jones found it a valuable contribution.

"I'm going to go to the next question," Jones said. "We may come back to you yet. It is somehow quite refreshing."

Refreshing it was, this discussion having started when audience member Ron Fellows and his wife Patricia challenged panel member, the ethicist Margaret Somerville, on her opposition to voluntary euthanasia.

"I'm 90 years of age," Mr Fellows began.

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"My wife is 81. We have decided that we will not go in to any kind of aged care facility. And if the time comes where we can't take care of ourselves, we will look for some form of euthanasia. We have told our children about our wishes. They have, albeit reluctantly, agreed that that is relatively not effective, but they've agreed to our wishes. But you don't seem to be able to agree and why?"

Somerville: "You're talking about what the Dutch are now calling a completed life. And the Dutch are actually looking at extending euthanasia to people like you who say, 'I'd rather be dead than go into a nursing home', even though you're not terminally ill."

Jones: "Are you making a slippery slope argument?"

Somerville: "Well, it is a slippery slope argument, yes."

She continued: "Your death doesn't affects just you. Your death is a social event. It affects your family, it affects your community. And ultimately, if what we're doing in society is changing the law to allow this type of, putting it bluntly, killing, then it is a seismic shift in our values as a society, and it doesn't uphold respect for life at a societal level and you have to have respect for life at two levels - for every individual person and for society in general."

It was on this latter point, when Jones went back to gauge the views Mr Fellows' wife, that the air turned that refreshing shade of blue - with a rather loaded term of affection thrown in.

Jones: "We're all sort of sitting here wondering if Ron is speaking for both of you because we haven't heard from you."

"Yes, Ron is speaking for me as well," Patricia Fellows said.

"And right now we're in good health. We do not intend to take our own life until we need to. And it's not about killing anyone. We will be doing it ourselves. I'm not asking Ron to kill me. I will do it myself. And Ron will do it himself. I don't know what you're on about, darling, about killing. That is definitely the wrong word to be using."

The target of that word "darling" - Professor Somerville - replied: "But it is still killing yourself."

Mrs Fellows: "Yes, but that's up to me … And it's got nothing to do with the community, darling. It's to do with our family."

Somerville: "How you die does have to do with the community."

Mrs Fellows: "Bullshit."

She paused to let that sink in, and then added: "Tell it as it is."

It was a bracing moment in a discussion also notable for what Jones called a Q&A; experiment: getting two panel members, in this case Somerville and writer Nikki Gemmell, to attempt to walk in the other's shoes for a moment and summarise their opponent's position. This didn't work especially well - in this territory, the panellists were best on their own deeply personal ground.

In the case of federal minister Mitch Fifield, this was in telling the story of the passing of his parents, and venturing somewhat awkwardly that "in each case their deaths were hastened by good palliative care … good palliative care can bring a death forward".

Jones wanted clarification: "[You're] saying maybe they're killing people without really telling us … in palliative care?"

Fifield: "Not at all. Perhaps because this is a personal experience, I'm not expressing it as clearly as I might otherwise. But my point is that good palliative care, can in an overwhelming majority of cases … can ensure people have a good death. That's my point."

British musician Billy Bragg also told of his mother's last wishes. "I made a decision to not extend her life and it gave me comfort. I was able to assist her to get what she ultimately wanted."

And then there was Gemmell, who has just published the book After about her mother, Elayn, who took her own life in 2015. Gemmell said her research had revealed an "epidemic" of pain and grief among the elderly.

"I've discovered these beautiful old men, they wanted to euthanise themselves," Gemmell said.

"They don't know how to. They want to involve their families. They're doing things like getting nail guns and trying to kill themselves with nail guns and leaving trails of blood throughout their houses. They're hanging themselves on Hills Hoists out in the back garden. I've been doing some forums [with] elderly people who stand up and say, 'Nikki, no one is listening to us'."

It was potent, bracing television, and a stray expletive was the least confronting thing about it.

For help or information:
• Lifeline: 131 114
• MensLine: 1300 789 978
• Beyondblue 1300 224 636

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