I disagree with those who argue that the prohibition of euthanasia should be maintained and by implication the law does not need to changed.
There is, unfortunately, a grey area in the Crimes Act in several states under which doctors who prescribe liberal doses of painkilling drugs to terminally ill patients and nurses who administer these drugs could be charged with manslaughter if the coroner finds that the treatment contributed to the death of the patients concerned.
While these doctors and nurses would almost certainly be acquitted if the matter comes to a trial, it does not prevent these doctors and nurses from having to undergo a long ordeal in the courts because they acted with compassion to relieve the suffering of dying persons. The threat of being prosecuted under the Crimes Act may prevent doctors and nurses from providing patients suffering terrible pain with adequate pain relieving medication in the final stages of a terminal illness.
The law needs to be changed so that the best palliative care can be provided to terminal patients. Doctors should be able to prescribe painkilling drugs freely to patients suffering from terminal illnesses and in great pain without fear of being investigated and charged under an outmoded, archaic law.
Jim Coates
Farrer ACT
Sorry for terrorism?
It is very nice to know that President Clinton has said sorry for the terrorism in Central America and that the US must not repeat this mistake!
Indeed, this terrorism on a grand scale is called a “mistake”! It is also nice to know that all the time the air-strikes and bombing in Iraq have continued so that maybe future presidents can one day call this a “mistake” also!
It is also nice to know that the CIA, responsible for this terrorism, is still fully operational and undoubtedly planning similar adventures elsewhere in the world!
Is there any difference between Central America and Auschwitz apart from a difference in time?
And it is also nice to know that the US regime right now is resuming the so called star-wars program which may lead to another arms race and yes ... a nuclear holocaust!
Doing another Hiroshima is maybe what the US has had in mind all the time, eh? When it comes to self-interests, politicians stop for nothing isn't it?
President Clinton thinks he has done Central America a valuable service but maybe words like “sorry” and “mistake” have a different meaning in the US when it comes to the interests of the nation!
Henk Hout
Sydney NSW
Stamping them down
In the year 2000, Australia Post plans to issue a series of stamps depicting what it describes as “ordinary Australians”. The 25 people chosen are intended to portray the “Face of Australia at the end of the 20th century and characterise the nation at the turn of the second millennium. The list below should meet the selection criteria.
- A long term unemployed
- A homeless young person
- A victim of crime
- A starving pensioner
- A dispossessed Aboriginal
- A poverty stricken worker
- An exploited worker
- A survivor of child abuse
- A disillusioned voter
- A frustrated welfare worker
- A bankrupt bush dweller
- A flood victim
- A rejected de-tox addict
- An unrepresented defendant
- An interned refugee
- A marginalised youth
- A struggling student
- A forgotten war veteran
- A vilified whistleblower
- An angry ratepayer
- A jailed protester
- A work for the dole conscript
- An ignored environmentalist
- An imprisoned fine defaulter
- A refused hospital patient.
Ron Baker
Eight Mile Plains Qld
Double standard
Throughout its approach to the crisis in Yugoslavia, leaders of the US-directed Western community have exhibited the egregious hypocrisy and destructiveness that routinely characterise their foreign policies. The Clinton administration's deployment of NATO troops for bombing campaigns against Serbia demonstrates the disparate standards applied by the heads of powerful Western nations, with the criteria for punishment or exoneration ultimately determined according to the offending state's relations with the US and its allied governments.
The US posture represents a continuation of its historic double standard towards allies and adversaries. Generous US and Western support in the post-World War II epoch for despots including the Shah in Iran, Indonesia's Suharto, Chile's Pinochet, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, brutal Central American authoritarian regimes and armed rebels in Nicaragua, Angola and Mozambique has been counterbalanced with righteous denunciations of several states, most notably the Soviet Union, Cuba and Iraq latterly. While repeatedly violating international law, the US continues to practice consistent inconsistency in its attacks on Yugoslavia.
Joseph Raso
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
SCLC 1
I felt I must respond to Wollongong DSP branch secretary Andrew Hall regarding his article on the South Coast Labour Council elections. In the article Andrew asserts that Arthur Rorris, who ran for the SCLC secretary's position, had support from “business circles”, an incredible claim which I have neither seen nor heard from any other source. From where did you get this information, Andrew?
Andrew also said that if Arthur was successful the SCLC's green bans would probably be lifted. This is a charge of the existing leadership and has been denied by Arthur and his supporters. Why does Andrew repeat this allegation as fact? Andrew also states that “it remains unclear whether Rorris will be accountable to local unions and the community, or will serve the interests of the NSW Labour Council and the ALP”. No explanation for this statement is given, but it is clear who Andrew is listening to.
Andrew's article was a sad and pathetic attempt to appear impartial, while, in fact, distorting the truth and parroting claims of the existing leadership as if they were fact. It is a shame the Wollongong DSP branch has supported such an ignorant attack on a left candidate and the many left activists who support a change in the leadership of the SCLC.
Nick Southall
Fairy Meadow NSW
SCLC 2
Andrew Hall's article (GLW #354) concerning the South Coast Labour Council (SCLC) “leadership challenge” fails to mention an important point.
The SCLC led by Paul Matters and Neville Hilton has long been in the forefront of the Bougainville freedom fight.
In January-February 1994 the Port Kembla dock workers (in this case Australian Workers Union members) blacked the SS Gopali, loading cargo for Papua New Guinea, specifically to protest against the Bougainville war.
The SCLC was attacked by both ACTU and ALP leaders for this black ban, but stuck to its guns and insisted that Australia's war against Bougainville — to recover CRA's Panguna copper and gold mine — was disgusting and disgraceful.
On many other occasions the SCLC supported the Bougainville Freedom Movement and the Bougainville Interim Government/Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) both morally and financially.
This contrasts favourably with most other union bodies, which long failed to give such support.
Max Watts
Sydney
SCLC 3
We want to respond to the political issues raised in Nick Southall's letter.
The election process and ongoing discussion here continue to be ambiguous and emotional rather than focusing on what would be the best way forward for the working class in Wollongong.
Nick's response is to an article in which the Democratic Socialists state they do not support either the Matters or Rorris factions above the other in the struggle for the leadership of the South Coast Labour Council. There are strong reasons not to support each, as well as some good reasons to give support to one or the other.
Lack of information from the Rorris camp on their proposals for the direction and policy of the SCLC has made stating clearly what it stands for difficult. All Arthur Rorris would say, when contacted by me, apart from general comments about unity, was that his challenge seeks to “manage the union movement better”. Had the Rorris challenge outlined a plan to actively involve local unions in the SCLC and continue the SCLC's support for progressive environmental and social campaigns, we would have gladly included this in our article.
The best solution would be for Arthur Rorris or his supporters to outline a clear political program for the advancement of unionism on the South Coast, and reasons why the Democratic Socialist Party and others should support such an alternative ticket. We are sure that GLW would be pleased to provide space for this.
Andrew Hall
Secretary, Wollongong branch
Democratic Socialist Party
Men can be feminists
Mary Merkenich writes (GLW # 354) that she was “surprised to read in GLW that men can be feminists”. We believe that men can and should be feminists because we understand feminism is a political belief, not a biologically determined value. Here we agree with the Macquarie Dictionary: “A feminist is someone who advocates equal rights and opportunities for women.” Anyone who actively campaigns for equal rights for women is a feminist, regardless of gender.
Mary advocates an “autonomous women's liberation movement in which men cannot be members”. She also suggests, and we agree, than men should be “involved in the campaigns and actions” of the women's liberation movement. But that, surely, would make those men members of the movement.
Maybe Mary is talking about women-only organising as the women's movement? Resistance and the DSP say that women and men have different roles within the women's liberation movement. We believe that there is a difference between the membership of the movement and the leadership of it. We believe that women themselves must politically lead the struggle for women's liberation. The decision of the exact organisational form of the campaign should be made by women, on the basis of what is in the best interests of building the strongest campaign for women's liberation.
In many circumstances, Resistance and the DSP support women-only organising as a way to help overcome women's under-confidence in politically leading, created by women's socialisation. Resistance and the DSP support women's rooms on campus, but we don't think that these spaces should be counterposed as a “safe refuge” from sexism to building campaigns to eradicate sexism on campus.
If we accepted the argument that men cannot be feminists, Resistance and the DSP would not call themselves feminist organisations, since both organisations consist of men and women. But both organisations do, proudly, see themselves as feminist organisations, which seek to convince all their members and all people of the need for feminist consciousness and action.
Margaret Allan and Wendy Robertson
Democratic Socialist Party National Executive
[Abridged.]
Correction
In an article I wrote in the April 7 edition of 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, the following sentence was attributed to me: “Under the mandatory sentencing laws, if during a previous protest an individual was charged and fined for some 'offence', a second offence could attract a minimum two-week sentence”.
This sentence is incorrect and I never wrote it. The Northern Territorian mandatory sentencing act imposes a minimum two week sentence for any crime of theft or property damage. The mandatory two-week sentence is never imposed upon protesters unless their crime involves theft or property damage. Incidentally, the three Jabiluka activists charged with “unlawful use of a motor vehicle” had their charges withdrawn after it was established that they were not using a motor vehicle, but rather preventing it from being used.
Robert Milne
Darwin