X-Message-Number: 7377
Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 13:07:11 -0700
From: David Brandt-Erichsen <>
Subject: Australia update

>From the SUNDAY TIMES (UK)
Sunday December 29/96

EUTHANASIA BID SPLITS AUSTRALIA
by Sebastian Hamilton

An Australian woman will announce this week that she is to end her life
under the Northern Territory's controversial euthanasia law.

Janet Mills, 52, a South Australian who is dying of cancer, will become the
second person to use the legislation, which has divided the nation since
being introduced in July.

Mills has spent three weeks searching for a cancer specialist prepared to
sign her written request to be allowed to die - a requirement of the Rights
of the Terminally Ill Act, which legalised euthanasia.

A concerted anti-euthanasia campaign by Australia's medical establishment
and church leaders had meant until now that no Northern Territory oncologist
would sign the consent form. Dr Philip Nitschke, a euthanasia campaigner who
has devised a computer-assisted mechanism to administer a fatal injection,
said this weekend that the legal requirements for Mills to end her life had
now been fulfilled.

Nitschke declined to name the specialist whose signature will allow Mills to
kill herself. "We do have to be careful because someone could bring an
injunction against anyone wishing to use the act to end their lives," he said.

The announcement is likely further to enrage church leaders and ruling
Liberal party politicians, who reacted furiously in September when Bob Dent,
66, a cancer sufferer, ended his life using Nitschke's "death machine".

MPs voted to overturn the Territory law this month after Liberal
backbenchers launched a private member's bill to repeal it, despite opinion
polls which show that 70% of people support voluntary euthanasia. The vote
still has to be ratified by the Canberra parliament's Upper House.

Nitschke said five more terminally ill patients were "obtaining the
necessary signatures" and warned: "If they feel the opportunity to die a
dignified death is to be removed, they will be forced to act precipitously."


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