Dying to legalise death

Minister wants euthanasia allowed

JED Perkins is dying, but so is everyone else in the world.

It’s for this reason that the retired Toowoomba minister believes voluntary euthanasia, and the ability to die on your own terms, should be legal.

As an advocate for Dying with Dignity Queensland, Mr Perkins is calling on the State Government to legalise assisted dying on “compassionate” grounds.

Mr Perkins believes people tend to let their personal and religious beliefs override sense when it comes to such a contentious issue.

“Some people say it’s up to God when we live or die but the people who say that don’t take that seriously,” he said.

“It seems to me there’s those who don’t want to stop people from dying.

“I do believe we’re given the ability to reason and to make decisions with our lives.” Mr Perkins has battled with hypertension since he was 17, and said he should have been dead 20 years ago due to a family history with strokes. When he hit 66, he started to worry that it would be his time to go, but fate would have it another way.

Now at 81, Mr Perkins said if the opportunity arose he would take advantage of voluntary euthanasia. “I have a bit of breathing problem, and it may be that I’m going to spend the next few years getting more and more breathless,” he said.

“If it got to a certain place where I was lying there, not getting my breath, knowing there was no possible way to relieve the symptoms, I would be very happy for that to happen.”One early experience he had with death was when his mother suffered a stroke and he was given the option of keeping her alive or letting her go. “She was on a ventilator and on life support and I knew she could no longer continue so I took the life support off because I thought that would be her wish,” he said.

Draft legislation to legalise voluntary euthanasia has been batted around parliament in the lead-up to the state election in October. Mr Perkins urged the government to remain impartial.

“If we really believe in a liberal democracy, one group should not force its religious views on another,” he said.

meg.gannon@thechronicle.com.au