Professor Margaret Battin:

About the failed attempts, legislatures are resistant to change.

As members know, this is a highly politicised issue. There are as many efforts in favour of legalisation. It has proceeded quite dramatically over time, given the difficulties of getting anything through a legislature. We should be aware of the greater acceptance of these practices and the ongoing efforts to legalise them. Ireland is an example of where this issue is now discussable and thinkable. Members will notice that in the US, unlike some other countries, things are highly partisan these days, for example, the undercutting of the national statute legal position on abortion and its return to the states. That has become vitriolic. I would not be surprised if we see the same thing with regard to medical aid and dying. That is more for political partisan reasons rather than actually thinking through what it is this practice gives to people in terms of the ability to be in control of their own dying. It has to be described as an effort for freedom of the person with respect to something that will happen to every single one of us and where some people, in this case comparatively few, do not wait to be erased or eclipsed by the underlying terminal illness. After all, approximately two thirds of us die of terminal illnesses with long courses, such as cancer, heart and other cardiovascular disease-----