Something that people may be attending; a small meeting with Dr. Rodney Syme, former president and lifelong worker for "Dying with Dignity Victoria" The meeting will be held next on Saturday June 22nd at 18:00 at the at the Melbourne Unitarian Church, 110 Grey Street. East Melbourne, June 22nd. Dr. Rodney Syme, will speak on "Legislative Requirements and Impediments to Our Last Rights" DWDV promotes the right for a mentally competent, terminally ill adult with intolerable suffering to choose whether to persevere or to ask a doctor for assistance to die peacefully. Current Victorian law denies the sufferer that right to choose, despite the overwhelming majority of Victorians wanting that choice for more than 25 years. DWDV's legislative charter specifies that the form of requested assistance given to terminally ill sufferers to die peacefully is to provide an oral dose of medication that the patient may consume voluntarily. This is physician assisted dying (PAD). In order to maximise safeguards, DWDV's legislative charter does not embrace the broader approach where a doctor administers a lethal dose to the sufferer by injection. A 1997 professional study published in the Australian medical literature showed that nearly 1 in 50 deaths is already physician assisted dying; but these doctors risk prosecution as the intention to shorten life is illegal, regardless of the patient's circumstances. The law is opaque, depending on the ability to establish "intention" or not of shortening life. In about 5% of terminal cases, palliative care simply is unable to provide relief from intolerable suffering (e.g., motor neuron disease, asbestosis, spinal cancer). A real consequence of lack of choice to die in a dignified manner with medical assistance is that some sufferers attempt to take their own lives anyway while they believe they still can, often by violent and undignified means. (Information from Dying With Dignity Victoria, http://www.dwdv.org.au/FAQs.html) The meeting has been organised by the Victorian Secular Lobby, Inc. For the Right to Life Victoria point of view see: Assisted suicide the path to Nazism: Right to Life http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/assisted-suicide-the-path-to-nazism-right-... http://www.righttolife.com.au/index.php/life-issues/euthanasia -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), MBA, GCertPM mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt