- LETTER TO MR MALCOLM TURNBULL MP 30/05/08 -

Mr Malcolm Turnbull MP
Shadow Opposition Treasurer
Parliament House
Canberra – 2006
 

Dear Mr Turnbull

With reference to your Wednesday May 28th 2008 SBS World News appearance regarding the Bill Henson media sexualized art exhibit, I concur with your verbatim replied re; “freedom is what makes this country great”.

Consistent with your freedom statement I too harbor strong convictions that it is the freedom to choose in all facets of life that makes us human and life worth living.

Being a supporter of Physician assisted Dying (PAD) it’s realistic to say that the requirement for autonomous choice in end of life decisions is becoming more topical, with all past and recent community based surveys indicating approximately 80% majority upwards in favor.

Voluntary PAD with an emphasis on the word voluntary, is not simply a choice between life and death, it is a choice between a different way of dying. For decades, politicians, doctors and the AMA collectively have remained silence regarding this important issue. In so doing they have perpetrated a betrayal of enlightenment concerning a requirement for policy change supported by available evidenced based on PAD medical research.

In confronting life’s uncertainties, I expect you to be receptively open-minded to my sharing with you a couple of intrinsic scientific research reports that embrace end of life decision making. For your perusal and interest I am taking the liberty of forwarding a recent evidenced based report extracted from the British Medical Journal dated 19th April 2008 headed “Palliative care and euthanasia should be dovetailed” to which I concur.

Also for your perusal I will forward an interesting evidenced based 2007 report headed “Oregon celebrates ten years of assisted dying” which corroborates what does and what doesn’t work with PAD and which has been welcomed by the majority of Oregon’s citizens in meeting the needs for freedom of choice within their community.

As senior person it would be welcomed to see the Liberal Party adopt PAD as the principal of empathetic socialization in order to meet the majority supported surveyed humane needs of a free society. To engender and stimulate debate for what should be an inalienable civil right for all citizens I encourage favorable consideration of the above.

Please feel free to circulate the above and following amongst your political colleagues and it is in anticipation that I await a reply at your earliest convenience.

Yours truly -- RB Senior Australian