EUTHANASIA: A good death (review)

A Good Death: An Argument for Voluntary Euthanasia
By Rodney Syme Melbourne University Publishing, 320pp, $32.95

AT Easter in 1998, Melbourne urologist Rodney Syme stirred the pot with a piece of mischief in The Age, arguing that God the father performed euthanasia on Jesus to provide relief from his unbearable suffering.

Even the son of God sought relief from his extreme anguish and pain, crying: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The Christian Gospels record Jesus died quickly, the same afternoon, unlike the victims of many Roman crucifixions.

Syme, a self-described Christian humanist, returns to this theme in his remarkable and provocative book, A Good Death. In the mid-1970s, Syme, then in his early 40s, sat facing a man whose invasive bladder cancer was causing incontinence and blood clots that blocked the flow of urine. He was in excruciating pain. Cases such as this, Syme reminds us, have caused generations of surgeons to whisper: "Please God, do not take me through my bladder." Pale as chalk, Len looked him straight in the eye, Syme recalls, and asked: "Isn't there anything else you can do for me?"

For Syme, this profound question recalled the suffering and despair of Jesus on the cross. Weekend Australian Review 21 Jun 2008