X-Message-Number: 6593 Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 20:45:17 -0700 From: Subject: Australia update AUSTRALIAN COURT UPHOLDS EUTHANASIA LAW DARWIN, Australia (AP) - An Australian court upheld the world's first voluntary euthanasia law on Wednesday, striking down a legal challenge by doctors and aborigines. The challenge to the Northern Territory Supreme Court was one of several attempts to scuttle the law, which allows doctors to administer lethal doses of drugs to the terminally ill. A bill also is pending in Parliament that would override the law. Euthanasia became legal in the Northern Territory on July 1, more than one year after the regional legislature passed the bill. Doctors have refused to use the law until the legal challenge has run its course, fearing they could be subject to murder charges if the law is struck down. Two terminally ill patients who traveled to Darwin for euthanasia have been unable to line up two doctors and a psychiatrist to evaluate them, as required by the law. The law also requires a nine-day waiting period. It's not known whether anyone has been able to meet the strict requirements of the law and use it to die. In the territory court challenge, plaintiffs backed by the Australian Medical Association and aboriginal religious groups said the law was invalid because the Northern Territory did not have the power to make life-and-death decisions. The court split 2-1 in ruling that the territory was within its rights. Dr. Chris Wake of the region's medical association said the ruling will be appealed to the High Court of Australia, where constitutional issues would be heard. Wake said the fact that the ruling wasn't unanimous added weight to a "strong position" to take the case before the High Court. <David Brandt-Erichsen> Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6593