- TO: LESLEY MARTIN (New Zealand) With friends Like You etc? 09/04/07 -
From: Your Choice In Dying [mailto:choice@yourchoiceindying.com]
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2007 11:52 AM
To: 'm-press@xtra.co.nz'
Subject: Insight Program
AN OPEN LETTER TO LESLEY MARTIN, AUTHOR OF “TO DIE LIKE
A DOG” PUBLISHED 2002 TO PROMOTE AND PROVOKE DEBATE ON A PERSON’S RIGHT TO DIE
BUT WHO ON SBS INSIGHT’S “SHOULD WE HAVE TO RIGHT TO CHOOSE WHEN WE DIE”
SCREENED APRIL 3, 2007: CHOSE TO CHALLENGE AUSTRALIA’S MOST ARDENT SUPPORTER.
Hi Lesley,
I’ve been asked by a number of viewers…..Whose side are you on Lesley? While
you may not agree with Dr. Philip Nitschke’s sometimes controversial methods
in part, you would HAVE to agree he has been one of the best media vehicles,
Australia has seen in a long time to have the debate of voluntary euthanasia
legislation brought to the forefront. No one can doubt his motives.
I have said to anybody and everybody that your comments on and off the Insight
Program both dismayed and angered me. I know that my personal feelings are
irrelevant to you Lesley and that’s Ok, but when you openly set out to berate
Philip Nitschke in a public forum, I felt betrayed by my own perceptions of
what type of person I had thought you were. My problem agreed, not yours!
I’ll repeat, in part what I said to you in private, prior to the taping……in
response to your telling me you are studying psychology so that you’ll be able
to provide professional counseling for not only the terminally ill but also
all their families.
I said to you: - that by the time a person has reached the “terminal” stage
usually a person had been all “analysised out” with facing their own
mortality. That not everything is solved by “talking”. That there is a very
great difference between someone like myself who has had a potentially
terminal illness and survived against the odds, and someone who is just
looking on and observing others going through the process of dying……..I agreed
some people may benefit from counseling, stating that I would not, having
faced my demons long ago – however I could see my children may benefit from
it. I said to you that mostly people are too sick to be bothered either
physically or mentally with trying to explain themselves to a professional
psychiatrist or psychologist on why they favored a hastened death. Just too
sick to care about the whys and wherefores.…….too weak to care except to stop
pain.
This is precisely what Philip Nitschke meant Lesley after seeing you out of
jail…..that he would continue to assist people with information because he
knew that legislation will result in too many bureaucratic processes that a
very ill person just can’t cope with at end of life illness….If you looked
into the face of Dr. John Elliott as he handed back his statement, you’ll have
a little understanding of how wearisome paperwork can become, to the very,
very ill.
But not everyone can attend an Exit Workshop , or read a seemingly complicated
book - so legislation too, is needed to protect the dying rights of those in
nursing homes etc . Not everyone can take their own life without the
assistance either from a healthcare worker or a trusted friend or relative. As
my sister has told me, she won’t help me, because she’ll have “to be there”
for my daughters!...and it would be very uncomfortable for everyone concerned
if she’d been directly responsible for assisting me to die. Who loses out in
all this Lesley? Who has to find another way?
We need direct action as well as legislative change because not all people
will have the same needs to end of life decisions.
I feel that you can’t know what it is like, but perhaps could imagine from
observing your mother – but I know! Both “imagining”, as a daughter watching a
dying mother and as a dying person brought back from the brink myself.
You see, Lesley, you have yet to understand that the whole of life is made up
of choices and what choice works for you, may not suit my needs at all. I
thought originally that you’d understood that concept, when I read and posted
your plans for New Zealanders on my website….A hospice where either choice
could be made by the individual in a serene environment where undercover
options were not required….Where both patient and health care workers could
rest easy!....
But we don’t live in New Zealand where Philip Nitschke is not fighting the
Government at every turn….You live there….but we have to live in Australia
with Governments on both sides of the House, ultra conservative religious
faith Right…where book banning is OK, telephone conversations, emails and
websites are censored and restricted…You haven’t lost that freedom yet
Lesley…..You heard the Federal Minister (Chris Pyne) For the Aged yourself
first hand – Governments in Australia don’t care what the 80% of Australians,
want for themselves – they will tell us what is good for us regardless of our
views!
It is unfortunate that the right to die well activism has been split in such a
forum as Insight but at least you put a smile on Nicholas Tonto-Filippini’s
face, as I watched him, not you……….. I asked the question myself, that was
asked of me….….who needs enemies with friends like you Lesley?
I make an effort never to say something behind a person’s back that I can’t
say to their face…so I am just being true to myself with this particular piece
of sharing my thoughts and feelings about you.
I haven’t intended to be offensive at all, just honest with you.
Mary Walsh
www.yourchoiceindying.com
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