AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY AND  ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHNS HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE
IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY .

Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins

1.     Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few  billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached
the detectable size.

2.     Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person’s lifetime.

3.     When the person’s immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumours.

4.     When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple  nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

5.     To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet  and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6.     Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells  and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow,  gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver,  kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7.     Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and  damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8.     Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce  tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not  result in more tumor destruction.

9.     When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and  radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and  complications.

10.     Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and  become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause
cancer cells to spread to other sites.

11.     An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by  not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

WHAT CANCER CELLS FEED ON:

a.     Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one  important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like  NutraSweet, Equal,Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is  harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses  but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to  make it white in colour. Better alternative is Bragg’s aminos or sea salt.

b.     Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the  gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soy milk, cancer cells are being  starved.

c.     Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is  acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than  beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth  hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d.     A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds,  nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh  vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance  growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy  cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including  bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes  are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

e.     Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green  tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins  and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

12.     Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become
putrified and leads to more toxic buildup.

13.     Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining  from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body’s killer cells to destroy  the cancer cells.

14.     Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence,  Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body’s own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements  like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body’s normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or
unneeded cells.

15.     Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and  positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger,  unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic  environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16.     Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment.     Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to  the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to  destroy cancer cells.

Our MLAs need to back Brown A MESSAGE to all Territory MLAs and federal members. Stop being such prima donnas whingeing about Bob Brown not telling you before he announced his intention to try to reinstate the NT Rights of the Terminally Ill Act. You were elected to protect and advance the interests of the Territory and that should always be your primary objective. Instead of acting wounded about not being consulted, you should be offering support and lobbying your colleagues to do likewise. Here is an opportunity to actually do something positive for your constituents, particularly the terminally ill. That is what you are paid for. Marshall Perron, Buderim

http://news.theage.com.au/euthanasia-a-test-for-rudd-nitschke/20080207-1qq0.htmlEuthanasia a test for Rudd: Nitschke
February 7, 2008 – 9:25AM

Deciding whether to allow a parliamentary conscience vote on the rightto die will be a testing time for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, prominent euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke says.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown plans to introduce a private bill tothe Senate next week aiming to restore the Northern Territory’sright-to-die legislation which was overturned by the commonwealth in 1997.

Senator Brown has written to Mr Rudd seeking his support for a conscience vote on the bill.

Dr Nitschke, director of Exit International, says parliament raising the issue of euthanasia is important as public sentiment on the issue remains high.

“I’m glad Bob Brown has done it, we need someone to stand up on this issue,” he told ABC Radio.

Dr Nitschke said with the change of government more people were likely to support voluntary euthanasia.

But he said Mr Rudd, Immigration Minister Tony Burke and Environment Minister Peter Garrett were unlikely to support the notion.

“It will be a testing time for Kevin Rudd on this one,” Dr Nitschke said.

“I would be very interested to see how it goes and I hope he has the wisdom of allowing a conscience vote.

Dr Nitschke said former immigration minister Amanda Vanstone was the only person in the Howard government cabinet who supported voluntary euthanasia.

“Now there are quite a few more names there and I guess it is a time to allow it to be reconsidered and certainly to see the views of the current members of federal parliament.”

NT news – Euthanasia debate is `pointless’

To the Editor:

I am disappointed with Paul Henderson’s reaction to Bob Brown’s proposed bill but I am more disappointed with the misleading headline in today’s article by Nick Calacouras “Wife doubts public acceptance”

I have no doubt at all about public acceptance – it is the politicians who do not accept the wishes of their constituents. Polls (even your own mini-poll) show the majority of Australians agree with voluntary euthanasia (VE). It should be an available choice.

Palliative care has indeed improved over the last decade but the desire for the option of VE is still here. It is not an either/or situation.

Both palliative care and VE should be in place.

I would like to hear just one politician say, “I am completely against VE, but my constituents want the choice so I vote in favour of this VE bill.” We elect the members of Parliament to represent us, not to be our consciences. (I said also, “If they DON’T take note of the public during the debate, then it is all over.” – leaving out that ‘don’t’ makes a lot of difference to the meaning.)

In addition to being president of the NT VE Society, I am also a member of Palliative Care NT and of Friends of Darwin Hospice. I have those choices now. I would also like to have choices if/when I become terminally ill.

Senator Brown may represent interference from Canberra to the current NT government but it is interference designed to undo the previous interference thrust upon us in 1997.

Judy Dent

http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2008/02/07/3293_ntnews.htmlEuthanasia debate is `pointless’
NICK CALACOURAS

07Feb08

THE wife of the first man to die under the Territory’s euthanasia laws said revisiting the mercy killing debate would be a waste of time.

Judy Dent said she appreciated Greens Senator Bob Brown’s proposed Bill to again legalise euthanasia in the Territory — but doubted it would ever get to a vote.

She was disappointed Chief Minister Paul Henderson said the Territory needed to revisit the debate.

“If they think they can have the debate among themselves, we’re not going to get anywhere,” she said.

“If they take note of the public during the debate, then it is all over.”

Her 66-year-old husband Bob (pictured), who was dying of prostate cancer, was the first person to make use of the laws sanctioning assisted suicide in September 1996.

Federal Parliament voted to overturn the law six months later.

Latest polling reveals 80 per cent of Australians support the right to die.

“There are a lot of people who might not want to die, but want the right to use euthanasia,” Ms Dent said.

“In Oregon, only a small percentage of people who get the drugs use them — they just like the comfort of having it in their cabinet.”

Mrs Dent said her husband’s decision to die was not as difficult as the paperwork it involved.

Her husband required the signatures of his treating doctor, a specialist in his terminal disease and a psychiatrist.

Mrs Dent has been president of the Northern Territory Voluntary Euthanasia society for a decade — “despite the fact that we haven’t been able to do anything”.

“There are thousands of people who belong to voluntary euthanasia societies around the country,” she said.

Mrs Dent said her only regret was not being able to discuss their decision with family and friends.

“Bob wanted to keep it all quiet until after the funeral,” she said.

“Unfortunately, it leaked out to the media after three days, so I needed to ask the police for security at the funeral.”

Choice Commentary:  In addition to financial members of the VE societies, are also the thousands of silent supporters, who because of their jobs and position in society, remain “in the closet”…..even a policeman told me, killing a seriously ill loved one should not be treated as a crime, and in particular, not Murder, with implies Malice of Forethought!!!

When I first started my political agitation for choice and dignity in dying, two friends took me to task because I focused only on the needs of the terminally and chronically ill people…I have a friend now into her nineties, who could well have written this American article.   She is just so weary, she wants to put her head down and sleep permanently:  She Wants to Die!!!  I said “but you’re healthy” and she replied “I’m tired of being jollied along and I see no sense of purpose in waking up each morning”..In fact, she tells me, “I wake up and think “god I am still here!” and it is not where I want to be”…

5 February 2008 from the New York Times

 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05brod.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

A Heartfelt Appeal for a Graceful Exit

By JANE E. BRODY
After reading the Personal Health column on Nov. 27 on preventing geriatric suicide, Gloria C. Phares, a 93-year-old retired teacher in Missouri, wrote:
“I was healthy until 90, and then Boom! Atrial fibrillation; deaf, can’t enjoy music or hear a voice unless 10 inches from my ear; fell, fractured my thigh and am now a cripple; had a slight stroke the day after my beloved husband died after 61 years of marriage.

“I’ve lived a happy life, but from here on out it’s all downhill. Is there any point in my living any longer? I’m not living — just existing. I very much want to die, but our society doesn’t let me. Oh for a pill to ease myself out and end my pain, pain, pain.”

As this column said in November, untreated depression is a common cause of suicide in older people, though by no means the only one. But when I spoke to Mrs. Phares’s son Michael, with her permission, he assured me that she was not depressed, just tired of living what she views as a pointless and painful existence. He suggested to her, not entirely in jest, that she move to Oregon or the Netherlands, where physician-assisted suicide is legal.

Modern medicine can keep people alive into their 9th and 10th decades, when in years past they would have succumbed to any number of conditions. Now a small but growing number of these people are asking why. What is the point of living so long if you can no longer enjoy living? What is the point of living until your mind turns to marshmallow and you are reduced to an existence that is less than human?

Assisted suicide raises troubling ethical questions, which is why the laws in Oregon and the Netherlands are filled with safeguards to prevent its indiscriminate use. But Mrs. Phares’s question is troubling, too, and it cannot be lightly dismissed.

When ‘Every Day Is Bad’

My high school biology teacher was 94 when I visited him at an assisted-living center. Though physically independent and medically well, he was not happy. Gesturing toward a dining room of people in various stages of physical and mental debility, he said: “I feel like my mind is going, and I don’t want to end up like them. While I still can, I want to be able to check myself out. Will you help me?”

I said I empathized with his request. But because I was in no position to honor it, I suggested that he speak with his children, who should agree with any exit strategy he contemplated and, perhaps, be able to expedite it. Why shouldn’t an emotionally sound, thoughtful person be able to call it quits when life has dragged on too long? When there is nothing to gain and much to lose from an ongoing existence?

I thought about my mother, who died at 49, a year after learning she had advanced ovarian cancer. When it was clear that no therapy could save her, when her life had been reduced to pointless treatments and prolonged hospital stays, she twice tried to end it, first by slitting her wrists and later by drinking rubbing alcohol.

Twice, to my 16-year-old thinking, her life was saved. But when I grew up, I asked myself, saved for what? More misery, an increasingly bleak future with no hope for recovery? If I were in a similar position, would I want to be rescued?

I can now understand the thinking of Betty Rollin’s mother, Ida, who, at 75, also had advanced ovarian cancer. As Ms. Rollin told it in “Last Wish” (Linden, 1985), Ida was a loving, funny, delightful human being. She was also a no-nonsense, take-charge person. So when Ida’s life had become a series of debilitating medical crises — “Every day is bad,” she said — she asked her daughter to help her end it.

“Mother,” Ms. Rollin responded, “is that really what you want — to die?”

“Of course I want to die,” Ida said. “Next to the happiness of my children, I want to die more than anything in the world.”

And so Ms. Rollin embarked on a quest to find out how her mother’s wish might be granted. It took courage and perseverance. But most of all, it took love, enormous love and respect for a woman who knew what she wanted “more than anything in the world.” With the right prescription finally amassed, Ida died peacefully by her own hand.

When very sick patients receive symptom-relieving medical, social and emotional support now provided by palliative and hospice care, few persist in wanting to die before nature takes its course. But even if such care had been available for Ida and my mother, it would not have restored either woman to a life she considered worth living.

Finding Dignity and Peace

Studies of dying patients who seek a hastened death have shown that their reasons often go beyond physical ones like intractable pain or emotional ones like feeling hopeless. Often the reasons are existential — recognition that their lives have lost all meaning, concern that they have become an undue burden to their loved ones, desire to avoid a protracted death or distress about the time and money being “wasted” in prolonging their lives, which are destined to end soon, anyway.

Dr. Timothy E. Quill of the University of Rochester School of Medicine says he believes that there is an occasional need for an assisted death. As he wrote in May 2004 in The New England Journal of Medicine:

“I recently helped my father to die. He was an engineer, independent, always on the go and in charge. He began to deteriorate rapidly from an ill-defined dementing illness, and his confusion and intermittent agitation did not respond to the standard treatments that were tried. He had made his wishes clear about avoiding any prolongation of his dying, but now he had lost the capacity to make decisions for himself.

“He was unable to sleep or relax at night, despite trials of neuroleptics, antidepressants, and antianxiety agents. How were we to honor his wishes and values and help him to find dignity and peace in the last phase of his life?

“We elected to try low-dose Phenobarbital. He awakened periodically to exchange a few words, but he almost completely stopped eating and drinking. He died peacefully five days later.”

Dr. Quill wrote that knowing last-resort options are available “is very important to those who fear being trapped in a life filled with suffering without the prospect of a timely escape.”

“Those who know that escape is possible,” he continued, “often feel free to expend their energy on other more important matters, and most will not need that escape if they receive adequate palliative care. A few, however, like my father, will end up in conditions of unacceptable suffering.”

I for one have made my wishes clear to my family. When the tortures of a continued existence with no hope of recovery outweigh the benefits of maintaining that existence, I want out. And I hope that those who love me will find a way to make that happen.

 http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23163573-29277,00.html

Greens want euthanasia law restored
February 05, 2008 01:46pm

THE Australian Greens will seek a conscience vote on restoring the Northern Territory’s controversial euthanasia laws.

Greens leader Bob Brown will introduce a private Bill to Parliament when it sits for the first time next week.“My Bill will restore the legitimacy of the Northern Territory legislation allowing voluntary euthanasia for terminally-ill patientsafter rigorous conditions have been applied,” he said.“Every opinion poll since the 1980s has shown that the vast majority of Australians back voluntary euthanasia legislation along the lines of that in the Netherlands and Oregon.He has written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd seeking support for the conscience vote.
And In Response from the Northern Territory Government: within hours of the Greens Media Release

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/05/2155259.htmBrown’s moves on NT euthanasia bill labelled arrogant
Posted 3 hours 21 minutes agoNorthern Territory’s Chief Minister Paul Henderson says Greens Leader Bob Brown should have had the courtesy to consult the Territory Government before announcing his push to have the Territory’s voluntary euthanasia law restored.Senator Brown has written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd seeking a conscience vote on legislation that would revive voluntary euthanasia in the Northern Territory.He says the Rights of the Terminally Ill Bill 2008 will be the first legislation put forward by the Greens when Parliament resumes next week.In 1996 the Northern Territory became the first jurisdiction in the world to legalise voluntary euthanasia, but the law was overturned with Commonwealth legislation introduced by Liberal MP Kevin Andrews, subject to a conscience vote.

Mr Henderson says Senator Brown demonstrates arrogance of breathtaking proportions by not contacting the Territory Government to gauge the opinion of Territorians.

“I find it very high-handed and arrogant of Bob Brown from Tasmania to be introducing legislation in the Federal Parliament that effects the Northern Territory, without any consultation at all with the Territory Government, or the people of the Northern Territory,” he said.

Mr Henderson says the make up of the Territory Parliament is different and palliative care has improved since the voluntary euthanasia legislation was enacted.

“Back in 1995 I was a supporter of euthanasia, but I have to say I haven’t been in to the detail of how we provide palliative care, and all of the legal and ethical issues that are inherent in our society in 2008 as opposed to 1995,” he said.

Territory Opposition leader Terry Mills says reinstating the euthanasia laws would be good for sovereignty, but the legislation should be voted on by current MLAs.

Mr Mills says he does not support euthanasia but he agrees with Mr Henderson that the issue must be put to a conscience vote.

“If on the hypothetical case the Greens Senator is successful and it does have an impact in the Northern Territory, I’d like to ask my
parliamentary colleagues on either side what is their view, so that we can move forward on this matter,” he said.
Choice Commentary:
I agree with the Northern Territory Minister, it was a matter of courtesy to run the proposal past his desk, and not to have done so, shows a lack of sovereignty for the Territory’s rights to govern without Federal interference.   Interference by the Federal Government which rescinded the original Law eleven years ago!  We continue to learn nothing.
  Watching the debate just go on and on and on, it reiterates why people take the law into their own hands.  Trying to get justice for people who want only to die a good death having already suffered relentless pain without a reprieve possible. 
The absolutely soul destroying stupidity of a government that cannot listen to its people is what leads people to break the law.   A stupid law cannot be respected, least of all, by those who have nothing left to lose!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4385764a10.html 
Outrage as healthy woman helped to die
A New Zealand woman who was not terminally ill killed herself with lethal drugs she smuggled home from Mexico after seeking advice from Australian euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke, known as Dr Death.
Details of the Wellington woman’s death believed to be the first such death of a physically fit person in New Zealand have surfaced as Nitschke, head of pressure group Exit International, arrived in New Zealand to hold suicide seminars in Auckland, Wellington, Nelson and Christchurch.
The revelations have prompted harsh criticism of Nitschke, who encourages euthanasia supporters to travel to Mexico to buy the drug phenobarbitone, commonly called Nembutal and used by vets to destroy animals.
“We are appalled at this woman’s death it’s a great tragedy. It’s outrageous [Nitschke] is teaching people about this and getting away with it,” said Right to Life New Zealand spokesman Ken Orr.
The case was worse because the woman was not suffering a fatal illness, he said. “It’s sad to see vulnerable people being enticed by his programme to commit suicide.”
A friend of the woman told the Sunday Star-Times the woman was active but suffered severe depression.
“I think if she hadn’t had that in the kitchen cupboard, she wouldn’t have died that day. People need to be aware this is one of the risks of what [Nitschke] is doing. My view is euthanasia should be only for people who can never recover from their quality of life. People who are depressed can recover.”
The dead woman’s friends and family knew of her pro-euthanasia stance. A few months before her death, she spoke about it being her right to decide when she died, regardless of whether she was well.
“I support her decision but I don’t agree with her timing she could have had a good life for a lot longer,” her friend said.
Nitschke was yesterday unrepentant over his role in the death, saying it was “arrogant and paternalistic” to review someone else’s decision about when to die. “You’re not in her shoes. She obviously made an assessment and decided her life was not worth living any more. You can’t simply look at the medical records.”
However, he admitted most people found euthanasia more palatable for severely ill patients. “I don’t doubt if we had prevented her to have access to do what she did, she would have gone and done it in a far more common way.”
Fifteen New Zealanders have travelled to Mexico on Exit International tours to buy the class C drug, which is illegal to import or possess in New Zealand without proper authority, and others have gone independently.
The woman, 68, was a life member of Exit International and one of its earliest members.
“She joined the organisation not because she was unwell but because she was a person who wanted control,” Nitschke said.
The woman suffered osteoarthritis, high blood pressure, type-2 diabetes and an underactive thyroid, called hypothyroidism. She was also on medication for depression for about nine months, which her doctor attributed to her husband’s death about five years earlier. However, she saw her doctor about four weeks before she died, in March 2006, who noted she seemed well and was enjoying life.
The woman wrote to Nitschke outlining her plans to fly to Mexico via America in April 2005 to buy “my own personal peanut pill”. (“Peanut pill” is the term Nitschke coined for a homemade lethal tablet, containing barbiturates, whose manufacture he has taught at seminars.)

“I’m 67 at present and held in reasonable shape by a fair battery of pills and injections (I’m diabetic among other things),” she wrote. “My personal end point is when I can no longer look after myself but hopefully not yet.”

She asked Nitschke for advice about buying Nembutal in Mexico. Nitschke said he sent her photographs telling her what shops to buy from and what to buy.

She wrote to him again on her return to New Zealand in May 2005, telling him about buying Nembutal for $US20, after initially being turned away from several pharmacies, and of the trip costing $NZ3000. “I consider it money well spent for the immediate peace of mind I felt.”

The woman was found dead in her inner Wellington apartment on March 26, 2006 by a neighbour, who found a handwritten note under her door, dated March 24, stating “Please call the police”.

Euthanasia information, including Exit International newsletters containing details of how to use Nembutal, were found in her apartment.

Controversy erupted in Perth in 2002 when French-Australian woman Lisette Nigot, an Exit International member who was not suffering any serious illnesses, took her own life after deciding she didn’t want to live longer than 80.

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411749/1569531

Death renews euthanasia debate
Feb 3, 2008 8:31 AM

An Australian euthanasia campaigner says a Wellington woman who killed herself with his assistance was of sound mind.

Philip Nitschke says the 68-year-old was not suffering depression before she died in 2006 as some of her friends are claiming.

He says the woman knew what she was doing when she took his advice and smuggled lethal drugs from Mexico.

Dr Nitschke, known as Dr Death, says she had told him her friends and family would not understand her choice to take her own life, and the accusations of depression prove this.

He says the woman’s medical records show no evidence of mental illness and he would only ever help people who are of rational thought.

The Sunday Star Times reports the woman, who was found dead in her apartment by a neighbour in March 2006, had been suffering several non life-threatening physical illnesses and told Nitschke she wanted to end her life because of depression.

Right to Life New Zealand spokesman Ken Orr says it is outrageous Nitschke is getting away with teaching vulnerable people how to kill themselves.

Orr says Nitschke gave advice to a woman who was not in a stable frame of mind. He says he should have encouraged her to seek proper treatment from her doctor for depression, as all she needed was counselling and medication.

Orr says Nitschke should be held partly responsible for her death.

But Nitschke is reported as saying it is arrogant and paternalistic to review someone else’s decision about when to die.

Nitschke, who is conducting a series of workshops while in NZ, was detained at Auckland Airport when he arrived on Thursday night.

Customs officers seized two copies of his DIY suicide guide but he says the copies he brought in have been altered to appease New Zealand’s chief censor, after the book was banned in February last year. He was allowed to bring in the modified version and says there is a good chance the new edition will find its way into New Zealand book shops.

Nitschke said he was released after about two and a half hours, but only after his NZ-based lawyers got involved. He said authorities made it clear they planned to question him at a later date, with his lawyers present.

The handbook, which offers advice on assisted suicide, was banned in Australia last year.
Source: Newstalk ZB

Choice Commentary:  Don’t you love that expression “as all she needed was counselling and medication”.  Right to Life Campaigner Ken Orr probably does believe his own rhetoric because he would be a religious man and they’re all great at “talking”….Counselling is talking,  and while it may assist in problem solving when involving a stressful decision about whether to give up alcohol or not, it doesn’t help at all in overcoming the physicality of genuine PAIN!!!! 

Talking does not solve the body’s sensitivity to pain, being as it is a reality, and not a thought that can be changed!.

Some one said to me the other day, they were so grateful that I understood their PAIN, that being told to “divert your attention to something more cheerful” was not helpful at all.  It simply isolated the speaker from the family.   Simply talking through an issue does not in itself make the subject matter disappear, pain is a reality for any one who suffers it.   Jesus suffered hours on the Cross, not days, weeks or months.  

No one can genuinely understand the tolerance for pain of another person and I feel Mr Ken Orr is very arrogant in “blaming” Philip Nitschke for another human being taking their own life.    Suicide is in the physic of most people and anyone who hasn’t considered its possibility while living a long life is blessed indeed, and probably not an honest person anyhow!   The woman had a mind of her own, she was not murdered, and made the trip to Mexico of her own choice.   

Philip Nitschke never encourages people to commit suicide but he does inform people on their end of life options.   Mostly he very clearly tells his listeners, find someone prepared to go to jail for you for a long stretch and you’ve found someone to help you die.  We are encouraged to be very clear about the legalities of any assistance to another person.   My view is that when you’re seventy years old plus or minus a year, what can the government do to me anyhow?    Send me to jail – when watching a loved friend or relative suffering intolerable pain is a jail of a different kind.

The Right to Life argument is based on a belief that all life is valuable and must be maintained at any cost, but there are those in the pro choice camp who dispute this assertion, and current statistics put this at about 80% of Australians.  

In the same way, millionaires continue to gather wealth around them long after their financial needs are met, Right to Life advocates want to retain life, long after there is a good reason to continue with it.   I don’t understand millionaires and I don’t understand Right to Life when they want to inflict their greed for money or life, when the price for retaining their place in society.

Choice for the individual is the answer.   If our Governments would legislate and acknowledge that the right to die, is every bit as important as the right to live, we wouldn’t need doctors such as Philip Nitschke and Rodney Syme to stand up and fight for those too ill through chronic and terminal illness to fight for themselves.

We call ourselves a “Christian” country, but become very selective about our Christian morals and beliefs.   I would never take away a person’s choice to suffer intolerable pain because they believe “it is God’s Will” but I don’t believe that for myself.

I don’t want a long protracted drawn out death, and I don’t see myself as “depressed” because of this view.   I won’t need “counselling” that enables the listener to feel good about themselves at my expense.  

The medication though is a different matter!