I write in response to Denise Cameron’s (no relation) letter published 12 July regarding Senator Sarah Hanson-Young’s position on Senator David Leyonhjelm’s proposed euthanasia bill.
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The letter was full of assertions and inaccuracies which cannot go unchallenged. Firstly she referred to Senator Hanson-Young's vote as “tainted”, I assume as an attempt to characterise her as hypocritical in her own description of Senator Leyonhjelm’s vote in parliament being tainted. This connection does not make sense.
Senator Hanson-Young referred to Senator Leyonhjelm as having a “tainted vote” because she, and many others, regard his behaviour and reprehensible remarks as conduct unbefitting of a member of parliament. So why label Senator Hanson-Young’s vote also as “tainted”? Is it simply because Ms Cameron disagrees with what she assumes her position is on Senator Leyonhjelm’s euthanasia bill?
Next was the claim that women are “over represented amongst the victims of euthanasia”. I’d like to know the source for this assertion because I certainly can’t find any evidence that women are over-represented when it comes to the self-elected ending of one’s life under any legitimate euthanasia legislation and protocol in any country. Quite the opposite actually.
It is the protection of the vulnerable that euthanasia legislation is designed to achieve. So until you can provide evidence that women are “over represented amongst the victims of euthanasia” we’re left with no choice but to disregard the claim. I'd also like to highlight the use of the word ‘victim’. It appears Ms Cameron was suggesting that people who choose to end their lives under euthanasia legislation are somehow murder victims. I agree that these people who choose to end their lives often are victims. Victims to the body they are trapped in that makes their living so unbearable. These people deserve the right to choose when and how they die.
I don’t generally make a habit of supporting Senator David Leyonhjelm, but I must point out that his statements were completely misrepresented. The senator has never talked, with “cavalier shallowness” or otherwise, about “citizens killing other citizens”. And I think this brings us to the crux of the problem, that perhaps Ms Cameron does not understand that euthanasia is assisted suicide, not legalised murder.
That in your concluding sentence you show concern that you might be killed against your will if euthanasia is legislated, either confirms the theory that you don’t understand what euthanasia is, or that you attempt to curry reader sympathies by suggesting that innocent lives may be taken. I suspect the latter is more likely given your penchant for rhetoric over evidence.
Chris Cameron, West Wodonga
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