As we report today, a bill allowing Voluntary Assisted Dying has passed through both houses of the NSW parliament.
This private member's bill introduced last year by Sydney MP Alex Greenwich (Independent) follows earlier unsuccessful efforts by Lake Macquarie Independent Greg Piper, in 2013, and former Nationals MLC Trevor Khan, in 2017. It brings NSW into line with the rest of Australia's states and territories.
Similar laws exist elsewhere, but a recent British Medical Journal summary shows that the number of governments that have moved to legalise or decriminalise assisted dying is still very much a minority.
The BMJ's alphabetical list is Australia, Columbia, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and some nine or so states in the USA.
Not a huge number, but the combined population is well over 200 million, and it appears that few, if any serious controversies have arisen as a result of the new laws.
That is not to belittle the reasons of MPs and MLCs who could not support changing the law. Debate over a "right" to die is surely one of the deepest moral and ethical questions that any parliamentarian is likely to have to grapple with.
Japan has debated euthanasia through its own cultural prism, but the Western nations on the BMJ list have legal systems underpinned by recognisably Judeo-Christian principles; "laws" in their ancient sense, that forbid, and indeed condemn, suicide.
But we live at a time when old religious certainties are breaking down in the light of a more secular and reason-based society.
For example, Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party MLC Robert Borsak - a vocal opponent of the Greenwich legislation - said earlier this year that he "had personal experiences with end of life care" that led him to his position, and that "all life is precious".
Yet this same man happily shot and killed an elephant, and posed with it - an act that is now viewed very differently to the way it was in the age of the "great white hunters".
At the same time, Mr Borsak makes a valid point when he calls for more funding for palliative care units across NSW.
Modern science has helped most people to live far longer lives than was once the case.
But we must all die, eventually, and in modern eyes, many would say it is unreasonable to deny an adult the agency to end their days with dignity.
These laws recognise that view.
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