March 24th 1997, day of mourning...

Today the Australian Senate passed the Andrews Bill, overturning the Northern Territory's law permitting the terminally ill to assistance in ending their suffering if they wish.

The Senate was created to protect the people from the excesses and misjudgement of the government. Today the protectors of the Australian people have delivered us, and significantly the most vulnerable amongst us, the terminally ill, to the barbarism of religious zealots in the government.

The crusaders clothe their hypocrisy in the cloak of moral purity.

Emboldened, they seek the rights of others to devour...

For those aged and wise who hoped, as they languish in "places of ignorance and darkness" that "the brightly burning torch of reason and the love of man was lit", is there now any hope that the young, who have lives still before them, will prevent our name becoming a byword for hypocrisy and inhumanity?

Des Carne Mar 24, 1997

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