Dr. Kevin Yuill:

The point is we already ration healthcare on a practical level. That is absolutely correct. However, we do it with individuals. The difference is that we are talking here about legislation that would make an entire category of people less equal than others. We therefore try to prevent suicide for those who are not imminently dying, but we say to others that their lives are not necessarily valuable enough for us to try to save and to try to prevent their death. The problem comes between individuals, where the Senator rightly says that a doctor with a 15-year-old and an 80-year-old on table may make that practical decision. If you can only save one, which one do you save? There is that sort of ethical dilemma where the doctor has to make a decision, whereas here we are talking about categories. It is worth remembering that the categories, which have expanded, generally include disabled people. This is one of the problems many of our members associated with Not Dead Yet have been raising. It makes their lives less valuable by saying we will not prevent their suicide but we will prevent the suicide of everybody else. Does that make sense?