Our current laws do not protect us from unnecessary suffering
In Australia today...
- It is legal, if you are dying and suffering beyond medical help, to end your suffering by committing suicide, often violently and alone.
- It is legal to refuse all medical treatment, food and water, and to die slowly of starvation and dehydration while your disease takes its course.
- It is legal for a doctor to slowly drug you into a coma while your family waits for days, or weeks, for you to die. This can happen without your consent.
- It is NOT legal, if you are dying and suffering beyond medical help, to end your suffering painlessly and quickly with the help of a doctor.
As a patient, you do not have any legal right to insist that a doctor gives you more, or faster, pain relief. That decision is entirely up to the doctor whose personal beliefs you may not share.
