Smart Martha Monday

Last week, my goal was to write a letter to the South Australian MP's against the current euthanasia bill that is before SA parliament.

Here is my letter that I have written:

Dear ,

I am writing to ask you to vote against the current euthanasia bill that is before SA parliament.

I am very concerned about this bill for a couple of reasons.

The first reason this bill concerns me is it is not only for terminally ill patients, but for those with chronic illnesses too.

Two of my children, have type 1 diabetes. This is a chronic illness. There is no getting it mildly or getting over it. It is something that my boys live with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Every day I have to balance what insulin to give both my boys with their food intake. We also need to factor in any exercise they do. Often they will have unexplained high sugars or low sugars even though I have given them the insulin they need for their food intake. We have to keep a constant eye on what they blood sugar level is and often check them both through the night. My boys both have a lot to deal with in their everyday life.

If the euthanasia bill is passed, it may lead to both my boys having to justify to someone one day why their lives are worth living in spite of having type 1 diabetes. I really don’t think they should ever be put into this position. From what I have read in the bill, the bill is not for someone to choose to end their life, it is to protect the doctor that decides it is reasonable to end someone else’s life.

This leads me to my second concern about the current bill.

My second concern about this bill is the vague wording that it has.

Words like reasonable and good quality of life are just too vague.

Just what is reasonable when it come to deciding to end someone’s life or to keep it? Is it reasonable to decide that someone has poor control over their blood sugar levels and therefore their life is not worth living?

Is it reasonable for a doctor to decide needing insulin everyday leads to a bad quality of life?

What exactly is a good quality of life and what is a bad one? How does one work out in a court of law that a person has a good quality life and if they don’t? What criteria would one use to measure this?

With these points in mind, I ask you to vote against the current bill.

Yours sincerely,

If you have any advise for any changes or think I should add something in, let me know in the comment box or even by email.

My email is on my profile page.

My goals for this week:

1) pray with Steve every night.

2) I am off to Adelaide for the weekend. My mother is moving into assisted living and my brother and sister need help going through mum's gear at her unit. I will be travelling by myself and Steve will be looking after everyone here. I need to get our house organised so that things can run smoothly for Steve. This will mean doing food shopping and menu planning before the weekend. It is the weekend that I would normally do my monthly planning/cook ahead but I won't be able to get it done. Hopefully I can get everything organised for the week and do the planning/big cook the next weekend.

Therese.

Euthanasia in SA parliament again.

Recently, I have become aware of a bill before SA parliament for the leagalisation of euthanasia.

The bill can be found here.

There are a couple of things I find a bit frightening about this bill.

Firstly, it isn't just for people that are terminally ill. It is also for those that suffer from chronic illness. Type one diabetes is a chronic illness. There is no mild diabetes or getting over diabetes. It is chronic always.

There is also a few words used in the bill that are vague.
The first amendment will be part 13 B.

This is what 13 B states:

13B—Criminal liability in relation to end of life arrangements:

(1) It is a defence to a charge of an offence against this Division arising
out of the death or intended death of a person if the death resulted, or
was intended to result, from the administration of drugs to the person by the defendant and the defendant proves, on the balance of
probabilities, that—

• (a) the defendant was, at the time of the conduct to which the charge relates, a treating practitioner of the person; and

• (b) the defendant believed on reasonable grounds that the person was an adult person of sound mind who was suffering from an illness, injury or other medical condition that irreversibly impaired the person's quality of life so that life had become intolerable to that person (the qualifying illness); and

• (c) the conduct to which the charge relates occurred at the express request of the person; and

• (d) the conduct to which the charge relates was, in all the circumstances, a reasonable response to the suffering of the person.

I don't like the language this bill uses. What exactly is good quality of life? Does a person that needs an insulin pump have a good quality of life? Does a person that has blood sugar levels going up and down have good quality of life?

I also wonder how one defines what reasonable is?

I recently heard of a child that was told she couldn't go to her school camp because the school thought her blood sugar levels were not well enough controlled. The mother offered to come to the camp and the school said no to this too because they wanted the children to get away without their parents. The school thought it was perfectly reasonable to not allow this child with type one diabetes to go but the mother didn't.

A school camp is one thing but it could be the next problem a family with a child with type one diabetes has is that a doctor thinks it is reasonable to decide that this child has no quality of life since they don't have good control over their diabetes so give them a lethal injection. That is what this bill allows. It is just frightening to me that my child could have to defend their right to life and defend that their lives are worth living. Every life is worth living. We really cannot decide if anyone has a good quality of life.

So please pray for all those that will be voting for or against this bill. Please write to them also and tell them that we do not want such laws in our state. I will be writing to all our MP's about this law and asking them to vote against it.

Legalized Euthanasia.

It seems that Tasmania is looking to legalize euthanasia.

I have been thinking about posting about this since I did My post on ESCR because the following comment was left:


would you also have a problem giving me the right to die? I have suffered from MS since I was a teen....I have gotten worse where I do think some days it would be better than living like this. Please don't take that right away from people, I wouldn't wish this on anyone, that is why I worry X-tra about my husband's diabetes, I'm sure the stress involved from taking care of me isn't helping him...

Life is a gift that we have been given. To end a life because we are suffering is wrong on so many levels.

Every single person on this earth has suffering to cope with. For some, suffering is minimal and for others, suffering can seem endless. I think it is important that we recognise the suffering in our life, but I think it is very unwise to let it define who we are and dictate our actions. To take a life because we are suffering from an illness is to let the illness dictate who we are.

The bill in Tasmania is titled the death with dignity. This is just a joke. Is it really dignified to take your life or let someone take it for you? Would a teenager that commits suicide have a dignified death? What exactly is dignified about letting a disease or suffering dictate your actions? It doesn't seem dignified to me.

We have recently seen ESCR funded with Federal funds. I think this is a natural progression from legalized abortion. Abortion is so accepted in our society that people don't recognise the embryo as human life or as deserving of the same rights as any other person.

At the moment, the bill before Parliament is for terminal patients only but if it is passed, we will see a natural progression (just like we have seen with abortion and ESCR) of life being denied for others and it will be more than terminal patients that will have their life ended.

As the mother of two children with chronic illness, this just frightens me. I know that at some stage their life may been seen as something less or undeserving of treatment because of their condition. We need to speak up for all groups and say that no group should be denied their basic rights. If euthanasia is legalized, I believe many people will be denied their basic right to life.

Please pray for the politicians that will be voting for this bill.

Therese