X-Message-Number: 7444
Date: Tue, 07 Jan 1997 12:21:31 -0700
From: David Brandt-Erichsen <>
Subject: Australia: statement from Des Carnes

The following is a statement by Des Carnes, who wrote the software for the
"death machine" used in the two Australian physician aid-in-dying cases.

January 7th 1997
The Australian gets it wrong

In a piece entitled "Legal bungle fuels death Act row" by D.D. McNicoll and
Maria Ceresa, The Australian, Tuesday January 7th, has totally
misrepresented the situation in the Northern Territory regarding the legal
and practical requirements for the use of the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act.

The article states, in part:- "Pressure to overturn the Northern Territory's
controversial euthanasia legislation increased last night after it was
revealed that no medical specialist was needed to sign the consent form for
those wishing to end their lives ... Mrs Mills' five-week search for a
specialist's signature was unnecessary".

The fact of the matter is that the small group of "30 to 40" Territory
resident specialists has decided that they will make the the Act unworkable.
In the words of Professor Peter Baume, it is "an industrial matter", a
boycott by the vast majority of the specialist group to even see a patient
seeking euthanasia. Without their participation, in confirming the diagnosis
of the terminal nature of the illness, the signature of a second GP in
addition to a psychiatrist is of no avail.

Health Minister Burke admitted yesterday that whereas only 90% of doctors
are opposed to voluntary euthanasia, 98% of the specialist group, whose
participation is a necessity for the Act to work, are opposed. As the
legislation now stands, this elite group of specialists exercises a pivotal
role in the implementing of the legislation, and numerous of its members
have publicly declared they will work to destroy it. That is why patients
seeking assistance to die are driven, as was Janet Mills, to desperate
measures. Janet Mills endured 3 weeks of refusals by NT specialists to even
see her, and as a last resort she decided to publicly appeal for their
assistance through the media.

No further evidence is required of the hostile attitude of the specialist
group in the NT to the legislation than the half page advertisement taken
out by some of their members in the NT News, Saturday July 13th, in which
they state:- " ... we will in no way involve ourselves with assisted suicide
under the Act."

The requirement that an elite professional group that is "98% opposed" to
the right of the terminally ill to end their own lives, be involved for the
Act to work, in opposition to polls which indicate over 75% of Australian
citizens support the right, is indicative of the deficiencies in the
legislation. It would be all right, if Territory specialists want to wash
their hands of the issue, if the requirement for specialist confirmation of
the illness were, like the psychiatric assessment, not limited by residency
to the NT.


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