Better Off Dead

The key word in Victoria’s voluntary assisted dying law is the first one: ‘voluntary’. By law, any doctor, nurse, or other health professional who conscientiously objects can choose not to participate in a person’s request for voluntary assisted dying. But how does an institution balance its employees legal right to conscientiously object with its obligation to care for its patients? Colin M, champion swimmer. “They were just playing in the waves. And he got dumped in one of those freak accidents and he knew straight away that he'd had a catastrophic injury.” -- Photo: Supplied In this episode, we meet Colin, a former champion swimmer and  professor of philosophy who is dying and who has applied for the legal right to end his own life. Colin lives by the ancient Roman philosophy of Stoicism. This is what the Stoic Marcus Aurelius had to say about death: ‘Accept death in a cheerful spirit, as nothing but the dissolution of the elements from which each living thing is composed’. For a Stoic, it is good to