Retired Prosecutor Gives His View On Death With Dignity

Retired prosecutor gives his view on death with dignity, Nov. 16, 2011.

THOUGH he built a career serving the law, the former director of public prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery told a forum on assisted suicide yesterday that it did not belong in every aspect of life.

It was a belief reinforced by the case of a man prosecuted for aiding and abetting the suicide of his wife, who was suffering a debilitating disease, he said.

''His case was not one for the criminal law, his case was one for some other kind of regime to have in hand that would enable appropriate steps to be taken with the full consent of the person who was surrendering her right to life.''

The retired prosecutor was one of six speakers at a Dying with Dignity forum at NSW Parliament yesterday, hosted by the Greens MP Cate Faehrmann, who plans to introduce a bill in the second half of next year to legalise assisted dying.

The former NT chief minister Marshall Perron congratulated her on the bill. He said he was repeatedly approached by those who watched loved ones die in agony or helped them die illegally in secret when he put forward a similar bill in 1995.

''It was like I had scratched society and it started to bleed,'' he said. That bill was passed but later overturned.

The photographer and host of Talking Pictures on ABC's Insiders, Mike Bowers, spoke of the slow capitulation of his father, Peter, to Alzheimer's last year.

His father, a former political journalist with the Herald, had already watched his own mother-in-law die from Alzheimer's and feared the ''terrible and wicked disease''.

''He said during a ski trip to the US in 2001, just after my grandmother had died, 'don't let me go like that Mikey, bloody shoot me','' Mr Bowers said.

The younger Bowers said he was now committed to the cause of voluntary euthanasia after witnessing the once-vital man starve and dehydrate to death.

''Part of me wanted to protect the faint glow, part of me wanted to snuff it out and end his pain. 'Bloody shoot me Mikey' kept wringing in my ears,'' he said, fighting back tears.

A spokesman for the Premier said ''the government has no plans to change legislation on the issue''.

Traditionally, if such a bill comes before Parliament, Liberal MPs are allowed a conscience vote.

By Josephine Tovey, Sydney Morning Herald