Euthanasia

If you were severely injured after falling from a building or being hit by a bus, and left paralysed, crapping yourself in a state of constant and overwhelming misery, you would want to die.

Unfortunately, you would not die.

You would be kept alive by the marvels of modern medicine.

Many people who have suffered a stroke or have become paraplegic wish to die. However, there are exceptions.

Seventy six year old Polish immigrant Magda*, suffered a series of strokes in the mid nineties that left her completely disabled and dependent on her children. She repeatedly expressed a wish to die.

"I am old. I have had my life. Let me go. "

However, one year ago her first great grandchild was born. She was reinvigorated with a will to live.

"I am so glad," she said , "That I did not die and have lived to see my great grandchildren."

But what about others who do not have any joy in their lives? Should they not be allowed to take control of their own fate?

According to devout Catholics, no.

"It is God's choice. You are not in charge of what you do with your body. Only God has that power. You have no right to end your own life." This is the opinion of Maria*, a devout parishioner.

Maria, however, has not and does not know anyone who has been left immobile, shitting their pants, humiliated and without hope.

A disabled New Zealand woman has commited suicided by refusing not to eat for 16 days. Australian euthanasia campaigner, Philip Nitschke, said today that Margaret Page's death was a tragedy.

"It is disgusting that the only option Margaret had left was to deny herself fluids and food and engage in a macabre process of slow torture and death," he was quoted saying by the New Zealand Press Association.

Nitschke is completely correct. If someone's quality of life has disintegrated so profoundly, they have every right to end it in the least traumatic way possible.