Poor Phil

Still no easy - legal - way to go - Opinion - smh.com.au

Philip Nitschke, the doctor who really, really, respects the right of anyone to kill themselves, even if it is just because they don't like being old, complains that he just can't get anywhere with re-introducing euthanasia legislation in Australia. Whose fault is this? A secret coalition of fundamentalists, of course:

In "Voting for Jesus", a recent article in Quarterly Essay, Amanda Lohrey identifies a fundamentalist, all-denomination Christian lobby that would have been unimaginable half a century ago.

As an activist of 40 years on a range of issues, I have never been confronted with such an anonymous opponent.

When the former prime minister Gough Whitlam warned me several years ago that no politician could afford to be railed at from the pulpit at preselection time I didn't appreciate the full meaning of his advice. I do now.

Maybe the most outspoken critics of euthanasia identify as religious, but I find it hard to believe that there aren't a fair number of the secular, agnostic, or only nominally religious who have doubts about euthanasia, and in particular find Nitschke's broad brush attitude to suicide off putting.