The Controversial Issue Of Euthanasia - 1150 Words

Euthanasia should not be legalised in Australia. Good morning 10C and Ms Leoni, Today I am here to talk about the controversial issue of euthanasia. This year, the Greens party has planned to introduce a ‘Rights of the Terminally Ill’ bill into state parliament. This has raised the issue of whether or not euthanasia should be legalised in Australia. Euthanasia is the practice of ending a person’s life in order to release them from an incurable disease or intolerable suffering. There are two types of euthanasia: voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary euthanasia occurs upon request and involuntary euthanasia refers to ending the life of a person who is not mentally competent, such as a comatose patient, or hastening the death of someone who†¦show more content†¦The biggest concern is what is known as ‘the slippery slope’. What I’m basically trying to say is that voluntary euthanasia will inevitably lead to involuntary euthanasia. The Dutch experience is a perfect example of this. In Holland, where euthanasia is legal, it was found that in 1990, 52 per cent of the 10,588 cases of a doctor’s intent to hasten death were done with no explicit request from the patient. According to the Remmelink Report, an official Dutch government survey of euthanasia practices, it was found that more than 1000 patients are involuntarily euthanized each year. This proves that there really can be no safeguards in legalised euthanasia. If you are elderly and at death’s door in a hospital short of beds, would euthanasia be a good enough excuse if your vulnerability was taken advantage of? We all need to understand that no proposal has ever been devised which can be guaranteed not to be abused. It seems that abuse is unavoidable since people with bad intentions exist all over the world. So let’s learn from the Dutch experience and not let this happen in Australia. It is widely believed by many that if a person is willing to die, then it is their own choice and they should be given the right to do so. However, they fail to understand that one’s ‘willingness’ could in fact be their anxiety and fear of becoming a burden on others, which drives them to make some extremely tough decisions under