SAVES is not affiliated with Exit International / Dr Philip Nitschke and opposes the public availability of a 'peaceful pill'.

Playing God : Ethics and faith
Andrew Dutney
Harper Collins 2001

In the 21^st century, we constantly have new decisions forced on us by advances in science and biotechnology. Bioethics has emerged in response to this experience. Andrew Dutney believes that bioethics has been left to experts for too long. This sensitive area of decision making should really belong to those who wrestle personally with hard decisions - the sick and those that care for them.

In Playing God Dr Dutney shows that as people go about the daily business of making tough decisions in light of their faith and circumstance, they are already engaged in bioethics in the most personal of ways. The complexity of this decision making is particularly evident in areas of bioethical concern such as suffering, abortion, euthanasia, procreation and fertility. Life and death issues are faced on a daily basis by thousands of people throughout the world who are playing God - because they must.

He argues:

Church authorities and experts need to give more attention and respect to the perspectives and insights of ordinary Christians, who daily test their faith against the realities of the world in which they must live, and allow their faith to light a way through the world. It is not good enough that when the discussion gets serious - as did the discussion on voluntary euthanasia in Australia in the mid-nineties - they are ignored, talked over or bullied into silence.

Andrew Dutney is the principal of Parkin-Wesley College and a senior lecturer in theology at Flinders University. He is the director of the Flinders University and Adelaide College of Divinity Centre for Theology, Science and Culture and the chairperson of the SA Council for Reproductive Technology.

A guide to Dutch voluntary euthanasia policy

SAVES library now holds copies of "Euthanasia: A guide to Dutch policy on euthanasia and other medical decisions in the terminal stages of life".

The question of whether, and how, criminal law should continue to apply to euthanasia has been the topic of broad political and public debate in the Netherlands for the past twenty years. This booklet comprises some twenty questions and answers that give the foreign reader a clear idea of Dutch policy on euthanasia, assisted suicide and other medical decisions in the terminal stages of life. This booklet is also available in several languages and it may be ordered from the Dutch Embassy, Consulate, or from

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Foreign Information Division (DVL / BZ /VB)
Postbus 20061
2500 EB Den Haag
The Netherlands.