Right to die with dignity

[angra]

Various polls have suggested that public support for the 'right to die with dignity' runs at over 70%, but no pollie seems prepared to raise this at State or Federal level - except for Marshall Perron in the NT.


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Perron in fresh right to die bid

FORMER Territory chief minister Marshall Perron has reignited his campaign for a national euthanasia law.

"Millions of Australians want to be more in control of the manner of their death when the time comes," Mr Perron said.

"The vast majority of us are more interested in quality of life than the quantity, yet medical advances have extended the time it takes to die and for some that means enduring a period of futile, undignified suffering."

Mr Perron was the architect of the NT's Rights of the Terminally Ill Act in the mid-1990s.

It was the first euthanasia law passed by a parliament in the world.

The Act was overturned by the Federal Government after two years.

www.ntnews.com.au/article/2012/11/16/315163_ntnews.html

[Matthew Of Canberra]

"Various polls have suggested that public support for the 'right to die with dignity' runs at over 70%, but no pollie seems prepared to raise this at State or Federal level - except for Marshall Perron in the NT"

That's because the pool of people willing to vote in favor of that issue alone is very small, whereas the pool of people who will vote AGAINST that issue alone is expected to be much larger.

These are people who will ignore just about anything else, as long as their candidates toe the line on drugs, gay rights, and their highly selective stance on when and how life can start or end. We call these people "values voters".

Some interesting commentary lately on the disaster at the this last US election for the NRA. It's always been assumed that they can mobilise enough voters on that one issue to decide any close races - so nobody dares to be the one who gets targeted.

But their backing at this last election appears to have given their preferred congressional candidates no particular advantage (their explicitly preferred and backed candidates mostly lost, in other words)