Death

How would you feel if you found out that your mere existence is such a burden on your parents they want $10 million compensation?

It’s not clear whether 11-year-old Keeden, who has severe brain damage after a rare genetic condition caused a massive stroke, will ever understand what his parents are doing.

Debbie and Lawrence Waller are suing their IVF specialist for “wrongful birth”, claiming he breached his duty of care by failing to take proper care that Lawrence’s genetic blood clotting condition would not be passed on. They say they love Keeden, but wouldn’t have gone ahead with the birth if they’d known because of his suffering.

Continue reading "These parents think their son shouldn’t have been born" »

Facebook is replete with all things grim and morbid. Attention-seeking status updates, almost as much woe-is-me as look-at-me. Now the social media site is hosting an app that will let you send a message after you die.

‘If I Die” lets you appoint trustees to release your final message in the unfortunate event of your demise.

Would you use it? What would you say? Share your thoughts and anything else on your mind below.

As we approach the Centenary of World War I, we start to think about the tremendous sacrifice so many of our diggers made. It is unimaginable to think that over 60,000 young men died in Gallipoli and the Western Front.

When you visit the battlefields of France and Belgium and the cemeteries and memorials you see countless numbers of white crosses honoring the fallen. Many of those crosses are for soldiers who are “Known Only to God”.

At the various memorials such as VC Corner and Menin Gate the names of those who were missing in action are engraved in stone. The Australian Government’s official estimation is there are approximately 18,000 Diggers lying under the fields of France and Belgium.

Continue reading "Digging up fallen diggers is the ultimate indignity" »

Inspired by that 80-year-old Californian guy who recently completed 80 skydives in less than seven hours, I’ve spent the past couple of weeks thinking about creating a bucket list.

These days, people do not accidentally live awesome lives. They work for it. Fiery impulsiveness and terrifying recklessness must be meticulously planned. A bucket list is a scientifically-proven and Morgan Freeman-endorsed way to achieve said awesomeness.

Without an action-filled plan of action, a person risks losing focus and aimlessly drifting to the point where they find themselves in a tacky, neon-lit club making out with a 53-year-old Kardashian sister while her publicist gently weeps beside a broken tray of tequila shots.

Continue reading "First on my bucket list, um… buy a bucket!" »

If people didn’t donate their tissue and organs to others, the following people wouldn’t have contributed nearly as much to the Australia we know: Kevin Rudd, Derryn Hinch, Kerry Packer, Jimmy Little, Fiona Coote…

We’d be a lot poorer for it. But Australia is already a poorer country than it could be. There are plenty of sick people who need organ transplants but can’t get them. Australia has one of the lowest rates of organ donation in the developed world. There are some 1,566 Australians on the waiting list for a transplant right now and every week an Aussie dies waiting for a kidney transplant.

The way to ease this crippling shortage is breathtakingly obvious. When you die, your organs should automatically go to someone who needs them. End of story.

Continue reading "Festival of Obvious Ideas #2: Compulsory organ donation" »

Some people effectively work as plants; double agents within a lobby group, party or organisation who undermine the very thing they purport to be working for. It’s anti-astroturfing. Chameleon white-anting.

Dr Philip Nitzsche is, I suspect, one of these.

The ghoulish right-to-die campaigner has won Therapeutic Goods Administration approval to import Nembutal, a drug used for voluntary euthanasia, for suicide, and for executions – including in the recent case of Troy Davis.

Continue reading "Euthanasia: When Dr Death comes knocking" »

The power of the Roman Empire can be traced back to one key factor: The Romans did not fear death. This was not so much a state of mind or philosophical outlook on life. It was, simply, the law.

This was a society in which making a good speech in the Senate, winning a major victory on the battlefield or even just being Emperor, were all grounds for a swift and unexpected execution.

If the leading men of Rome had permitted themselves to have even the slightest fear of dying no one would have gotten anything done, since the consequence of doing pretty much anything was to be stabbed in the neck by an old friend.

Continue reading "The ALP should seek liberation in its annihilation" »

By now, Robert Ettinger should be well and truly frozen.

At 92, the man widely credited as the founder of the cryogenics movement had already seen the some of the best and worse of the past century.

He died on Saturday and reportedly became the 106th patient at his Michigan-based Cryonics Institute, where he joins his mother and first two wives. I genuinely hope it all works out for him and that he lives long and prospers… again.

Continue reading "Robert Ettinger’s not dead. He’s frozen. And one day…" »

Since the dawn of life, there has been death. And since the dawn of death, there have been endless vain attempts, some gallant and some desperate, some real and some imagined, some tragic and some inspiring, to grasp the key that unlocks immortality.

One of the earliest literary works, the Epic of Gilgamesh, is preserved on twelve clay tablets recovered from the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal’s ancient library collection and depicts a hero’s search for the secret to everlasting life. Jumping forward almost two thousand years, Oscar Wilde’s fictional character Dorian Gray was consumed by his desire for eternal youth.

The human preoccupation with preventing death is as alive today as it was in the times of Ashurbanipal and Wilde.

Continue reading "You might be dead, but you can still win arguments" »

There’s nothing like a good euthanasia debate to make you wary of doctors.

Sure, they come across all innocent with their gentle bedside manners, illegible handwriting and attempts to cure what ails us. If euthanasia opponents are to be believed, though, they’re actually dastardly devils with a desire for death.

Give ’em an inch when it comes to helping us die and they’ll take a mile – not to mention solicitations from family members who want to knock us off and take our riches, too.

Continue reading "Politics has no place in how we choose to die" »

What do you do with your life when what is left can be counted in years, rather than decades?

When the realisation hits that you are sliding into oblivion?

This new fear is aided and abetted by the overwhelming attitude of the community towards the elderly.

Continue reading "Life. Most definitely NOT a rehearsal" »

George Bernard Shaw once observed that the statistics about death are very impressive - one out of one people dies. So why don’t we give more thought to what happens after we die? A 10-minute cab ride on Christmas Eve reminded me of a question we all need to ask, but rarely do.

I jumped in the cab at Chatswood with a spring in my step - I’d successfully completed my Christmas shopping - shopping I’d foolishly left until the last minute. When I asked the driver where he was up to with his present-buying, he explained that as a Muslim, he and his family wouldn’t be celebrating Christmas.

Instead, they would be holding their own celebration a couple of months later in a traditional Persian celebration that would appear, on the outside at least, much the same as a traditional Australian Christmas, minus of course, any references to God himself dwelling among us as he is born as a baby.

Continue reading "What do you think happens when we die?" »

Dear Mum,

This illness has gone on long enough. I can’t bear to see you suffer any more. I know you are going to say in your usual way, ‘don’t worry about me, I’ll be ok’, but it is becoming hard to see what the point of it all is anymore.

I am worried about you, really worried. You shouldn’t have to live through this. This cancer isn’t who you really are.

I really don’t think I can bring the kids again. The thought of them seeing you like this – with no hair, helpless to look after yourself, those blotches on your skin, your face screwed up in pain – is killing me.

Continue reading "Who is euthanasia really for? A letter from a loving son" »

We all have to pay tax. And then we have to die.

These two fundamentals are well understood by most Australians - that’s what I surmise from our latest Auspoll. Somewhat astonishingly, to me anyway, a massive 76 per cent of Australians we asked this week said people with terminal illnesses should be allowed to choose euthanasia without breaking the law.

76 per cent is an extraordinary figure. It’s hard to get that for a tax cut. We thought we would find a modest majority on this question, but backing from four out of five Australians for the right to choose the timing and manner of our inevitable exit is very emphatic.

Continue reading "The issue that will not die: 76% support for euthanasia" »

I’ve upset a lot of people over the years. At first I thought this was due to my unwavering history of frank and fearless journalism but it turns out people just find me rather annoying.

It is for this reason that I find the euthanasia debate a little bit worrying. I’ve seen the way my mother looks at me sometimes.

There are also fiscal considerations. I am already in my mid-thirties and drink and smoke far too much. If I were bumped off now it would likely save the hospital system a great deal of money and - from what my bosses tell me - have no discernible impact on national productivity.

This is not just a fear for myself of course but a fear for all of us who are vulnerable at times.

Continue reading "The problem with euthanasia is living can be harder" »

It’s one of pop culture’s great clichés that some actors and some films are best known for their great dying scenes.

I’m watching another dying scene right now, but this is real life and to the people involved, as the weeks have gone by, it seems all the drama has been bleached out of it. The dull flat winter days are turning to vibrant spring. My family is watching my mother slowly dying.

I hold her hand. The cancer inside her is fighting hard. She is resilient and quietly tough and fighting too. But by this stage, we all know what the final result will be. It’s a matter of time, a matter of days. The nurses and the palliative care team, magnificent, tireless, dedicated, work to make her comfortable.

Continue reading "As I watch my mother slowly dying" »

The Rudd Government’s latest health blueprint is a well-intentioned but ultimately futile attempt to manage a system that has become the unwitting tool of our quest for immortality.

No matter how well the system is managed, it will remain unsustainable so long as we expect it to keep us alive way after we have passed our personal use-by date.

As we await the barrage of Baby Boomers to enter old age and demand access to the life-sustaining machines that go ‘beep’, we should draw inspiration from the 1970s classic Logan’s Run and accept death is part of the deal.

Continue reading "The real health crisis - we’re all scared of death" »

Rumour has it that if Katherine Jackson is granted permanent custody of Michael Jackson’s children, the brood could be raised by her eldest—and private—daughter Rebbie.

What a relief, when one considers the frightening prospect of Joseph Jackson playing a more permanent role in their upbringing.

Here is a man who has long been accused of ruling the famous clan with an iron fist and who, according to Michael, sat in a chair with a belt in his hand as the Jackson Five rehearsed.

Continue reading "Even in death Michael still a cash-cow to Jackson Snr" »

NO Billie Jean. No Beat It. No-one was starting something, not even a moonwalk. Of all the unlikely things, it was often quiet.

Whatever your life had been, you’d probably want it mourned this way: solemn, plenty sad, and plenty of slow songs. But this was Michael Jackson, and no one expected it be as normal as that. So it was time to put aside your thoughts about the life being recognised and be surprised.
And perhaps nothing could have surprised a viewer more than a farewell that flipped the coin from crazy heads to solemn tales - the telling of gentle and kind stories that somehow did not leave you feeling conned, despite all we think we know about the man.

Continue reading "The quiet, dignified end to Michael Jackson’s mad life" »

While we officially record our sorrow at the passing of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett - and anyone else who’s carked it in the past 20 minutes or so - it’s worth noting the terminal case of death-mania which has struck the media today.

Leading the charge was Richard Wilkins on Channel Nine who aired the hoax story that Jeff Goldblum had died, apparently from a fall. Nine boldly declared Goldblum to be deader than disco and ran with the story for a full ten minutes before airing new details which had come to hand, namely that the star of The Fly and Jurassic Park was considerably less dead than originally feared.

The official, pissed-off word came on Twitter from Kevin Spacey.

Continue reading "OK can everyone who isn’t dead raise their hand" »