COVID-clear status at risk
The exodus of Melbourne people to Border towns should cause concern and let's hope they follow the rules set if they were in the Melbourne suburbs and isolate and wear a mask...
Let's also hope police do number plate checks as to where they are from and force quarantine and a test for COVID. Motels and hotels and caravan parks need to note where guests have come from and if they have come from COVID infected area.
Our COVID clear status is at risk of being lost by city disregard.
Stuart Davie, Corowa
A matter of informed choice
I find Father Lee's assumption in his article in yesterday's Border Mail (Opinion 28/5), that people only consider euthanasia when they are vulnerable, very offensive.
There are many intelligent, mentally sound and physically fit people who have thoroughly researched this topic and decided that this is the path they want available to them if they find themselves in a situation where palliative care is not easing their pain or where they are suffering loss of dignity nearing the end of their life. I have supported euthanasia ever since I was a teenager mainly through my experience living on a farm where we "put down" ie euthanised animals when they were beyond saving. It needs to be noted here that the RSPCA fine people if they abuse or mistreat animals however the law in NSW will not permit the same humanity for humans.
Instead, if a person no longer wishes to live, ie the pain and the misery of their ailment becomes too much for them, they must starve themselves like a member of my family did. It took him 4 long days to die. So we treat animals better than our fellow humans. I am not undermining palliative care. The palliative care in Australia is wonderful and essential. However, unlike Father Lee, I am in support of both sides and recognize that everyone should have the right to make their own choice. I just wish that all Australians and in fact everyone in the world could have that choice.
Dianne Jenkins, Springdale Heights
IN OTHER NEWS:
Religious influence not bad
Euthanasia campaigner Sharon Potocnik claims Albury MP Justin Clancy shouldn't "impose" his morality on the electorate. (BM 23/4) But it's alright for her to impose her amorality on it? " Especially" she says, " if his 'principles' are influenced by his religion or church."
Why? Mother Teresa of Calcutta was influenced by her religion and inspired the world with her care for the dying. She didn't go into the streets with a syringe and put them down. For centuries, Christians have been running hospices for the dying.
How many have Andrew Denton and Dying with Dignity established? Ms Potocnik is wrong to claim assisted suicide "is only available to terminally ill people within months of their inevitable death." West Australia's assisted suicide laws aren't due to operate until mid 2021 and already the Chair of Dementia Australia is calling for them to extend to Alzheimer's sufferers.
The Victorian government predicted there would be about 12 assisted suicides in the first year of legalisation.There were 124. Pressure is now mounting to withdraw the right of conscientious objection from health care facilities and individual medical personnel.
Denise M Cameron, Albury
