Euthanasia support in Australia strengthens to nearly 90pc - Polidicks

Support amongst Australian voters for voluntary euthanasia has jumped 15 percentage points in the past six years, to almost 90 per cent, according to Vote Compass data. Key points 90 per cent of Australians support assisted dying for the terminally ill with strong support across all parties Half think people on welfare should be subjected to random drug tests On Australia becoming a republic, a third of voters agree, a third disagree and the rest are neutral When the question was first asked in 2013's Vote Compass, 75 per cent of voters were in favour; this increased to 77 per cent in 2016. Support for terminally ill people to end their lives with medical assistance cuts across gender, religious and political party lines, with more than 70 per cent in all subgroups now in favour. In 2017, Victoria became the first state to legalise voluntary assisted dying, with legislation to come into force next month. A bill to legalise assisted dying is expected to be introduced to the WA Parliament later this year. However, opinions about other social questions — including drug-testing those on welfare, teaching transgender awareness and Australia becoming a republic — were very mixed. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-08/vote-compass-social-issues-euthanasia-transgender-republic-drugs/11087008

I'm in agreement with the 90% then. It's nobody's business whether a terminally ill person should be allowed to die except that person themselves. Sure, put certain requirements in place, but stopping people from doing it is stupid.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind assisted death being available to anyone who requests it. Maybe it's just due to my own views of mortality, but assisted death is a "clean" suicide. You are not leaving your brain mass on nearby walls, you are not leaving an ugly discovery for family, and such a request for death system would give the ability to find solutions for problems that folks have.

I don't see why not, you let someone die with dignity and without pain, while also saving Medicare a lot of money keeping them alive. I mean my grandfather wanted to go, but they kept him alive with late stage emphysema until his body gave up and he died vomiting litres of blood then suffocating on it. Fuck that, it was awful and assisted dying would've prevented that needless suffering.

If people have a terminal illness, sure. But I don't think we should go down the road of it being available to literally everyone. Especially in the case of people who don't have any serious illness whatsoever, and are just depressed or lonely or whatever. I feel like it should be society's responsibility to help these people instead of just making it easier for them to off themselves. There are many people who after attempted suicides have come back from the brink and had happy, successful lives. I'll freely admit though that I'm biased about this particular issue - because apart from my parents helping me through my depression, the biggest reason I never gave into my suicidal thoughts was because the only options available to me were painful as hell. If there had been government clinics just around the corner that would have offered me a painless death, I might have actually done the deed. So I'm glad there weren't.

I think you should probably need to consistently want assisted suicide for 6 months or so with some psychological reviews, but that anybody, no matter the reason, should be able to end it. I've unsuccessfully tried to end my life a few times, the last attempt in 2013, and my life is worse now than it was then. My experiences shouldn't decide policy, but I don't think we should stop people from being able to make a decision about their own mortality. Everybody's depression is different, but mine is so deeply rooted and I've only become more estranged from society as I've gotten older. There's no support out there for me and I see no indications that will ever change. It's not other people's fault either - there's not really much people can do for me. So yeah, I think I and others like me should be able to get an assisted suicide as long as we go through a psychological review and consistently want this for ourselves. Ending one's life is a lot harder than many people think if you don't want to hang yourself - the body's survival instinct is powerful.