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In January 1995, the Royal College of Nursing, Australia (RCNA) took the unprecedented step of releasing for comment a discussion paper entitled Euthanasia: an issue for nurses. Responses were received from nurses working in a variety of areas and reflected a diversity of knowledge, opinion, values and beliefs about euthanasia and assisted suicide. In some cases, the responses also demonstrated a disconcerting need for information and guidance on how best to respond to the uncertainty, controversy and complexity that have become so characteristic of the euthanasia/assisted suicide issue. Perhaps most confronting of all, however, was the emerging difficult question of whether professional nursing organisations should take a definitive stance on the euthanasia question and adopt a formal position either way on the role of nurses in assisting with euthanasia practices (Johnstone 2009).
Recognising the complexity and perplexity of the euthanasia issue, the RCNA subsequently commissioned a monograph entitled: The politics of euthanasia: a nursing response (Johnstone 1996). The purpose of this monograph was not to provide nurses with concrete answers to the complex questions posed by euthanasia. Rather, it was to advance a discussion that would enable nurses 'to formulate their own thinking and viewpoints on the subject and to be able to contribute to broader professional discussion on the whole issue of the right to die' (Johnstone 1996, p. 22).
Meanwhile, following the passage of the Northern Territory's controversial Rights of the Terminally III Act 1995 (which came into effect on 1 July 1996), Northern Territory nurses had to confront the reality of being enabled by law to...