Why we should have the choice to die: OPINION

"THE euthanasia debate is about having the right and the choice, faced with a very specific situation".

EUTHANASIA: Is there middle ground in this ongoing debate? Picture: KatarzynaBialasiewicz

NSW State MPs voted down a voluntary assisted dying Bill last night in Parliament.

It was a long day of emotional debate, but as midnight approached, the Bill was finally defeated in the Legislative Council by 20 votes to 19.

The euthanasia debate for me is very similar to the same sex marriage one: it's about having the right and the choice, faced with a very specific situation.

I don't think I could personally go ahead with it, but I am saying this while I believe to be in good health.

I do not know what my point of view would be if someone in my family or myself was facing with a dreadful prognosis. But personally, I would like to have a choice.

After all, the bill voted down yesterday was about having a choice.

The choice to end a state of constant suffering if it gets to that point.

Local MLC Catherine Cusack has said she opposed the Bill because it would produce an influx of suicides, as it did in Oregon, USA, when a similar scheme was put in place.

Well, isn't that what the Bill was meant to do? Offer a choice for people to end their own lives (also known as suicide) because society realises it is the humane thing to do, to offer them a choice when facing certain death in painful circumstances?

I feel that Ms Cusack has decided the NSW Government and her party knows best on what our personal options should be when facing death-threatening illness.

I was under the impression that is not the way Liberals faced issues of this kind.