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The VE Bulletin Excerpts
'No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself' Rudyard Kipling
Senator Vanstone calls for voluntary euthanasia laws
Senator Amanda Vanstone has used the 10th anniversary of Australia's first legal voluntary euthanasia death under the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act to call for the practice to be sanctioned across the country. In September 1996, Mr Bob Dent was the first person to use the Northern Territory law that was overturned only six months later by federal parliament. Senator Vanstone argues that people close to death should be able to ‘choose how they go’, stating on ABC Radio:
I think someone who's facing the end of their life should have the choice as to how that proceeds…I think people should have the choice to take the final step of their life - that is to die - with some dignity and grace...we need euthanasia laws.
She made a cautionary note about people being shielded from ‘greedy relatives’, and ‘from people who think they know better, whose perhaps religious or ideological position is different’. Senator Vanstone sent a prepared speech on her views to the Remembering ROTI: Looking Forward Looking Back Conference held in Sydney.
Reference: AAP September 22nd 2006
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