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Of Death and Dignity
In just four years, four States have passed ‘voluntary assisted dying’ laws to permit doctors to help ly ill patients kill themselves. In the two remaining States, Queensland and NSW, similar draft Bills await debate. ‘Dying with dignity’ rallies the supporters of these laws. Is it dignified to kill oneself? Is dignity lost in struggling on in pain and suffering? The story of an elderly woman who died from Alzheimer’s dementia offers some answers to these questions.
Of Alzheimer’s, an American doctor wrote more than thirty years ago, in a popular book about dying: ‘There is no dignity in this kind of death’[1]. If you had chanced to walk into the elderly woman’s room, when she lay dying, you would have seen her wasted body unable to eat, drink or move herself, heard her speechless, ragged breathing, and looked at her static eyes. No dignity was on display.
Five years earlier, she lost her wedding and engagement rings. She had worn them every day of her married…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
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6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
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23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
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2 mins