X-Message-Number: 7926
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 15:56:56 -0700
From: David Brandt-Erichsen <>
Subject: Australia update

          From THE AUSTRALIAN (March 24)

          NITSCHKE VOWS TO FIGHT
          By Georgina Windsor

          MARCH 24: Euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke
          threatened yesterday to break the law to help two of his
          terminally ill patients die if the Senate overturns the Northern
          Territory's euthanasia law today.

          Dr Nitschke, in Canberra to lobby for the law, said he would not
          turn his back on the two patients who had completed the necessary
          documentation to die.

          He said that, even if the Andrews Bill passed, the Territory law
          would be considered legal until the Governor-General, Sir William
          Deane, had signed the royal assent on the controversial
          anti-euthanasia legislation.

          The Senate is expected to vote on the Bill tonight, with both pro
          and anti-euthanasia supporters saying the final vote of the 73
          senators is too close to call, and government sources believing it
          will be decided either way by just one vote.

          Dr Nitschke said the two patients had written to ask Sir William
          to "slow down" the signing of the legislation to give them time to
          use the Territory law.

          "If it all goes wrong and it becomes such a hypothetical question
          of, 'What will you do?', then I tend to answer it by saying, 'It's
          very hard to turn your back on people who are in this plight'," he
          said.

          "Obviously I feel very involved with those patients.

          "The question is, just how far does that involvement go . . .
          Would I behave illegally? Well, I've said that I'll help them, but
          can you help them in ways other than illegally? I don't know: I'll
          have to wait and see."

          Dr Nitschke said he was hopeful the Senate would support an
          amendment to the Andrews Bill proposed by Greens Senator Bob Brown
          to allow the two patients to die under the Territory law.

          The spokesman for the Coalition for Voluntary Euthanasia, Dr
          Robert Marr, called on Liberal Senator Winston Crane yesterday to
          "follow his conscience" and vote against the Bill now that a
          replacement for former senator Dr Bob Woods had been chosen.

          Senator Crane has agreed to abstain from tonight's vote to pair Dr
          Woods - an anti-euthanasia supporter - who resigned from the
          Senate this month after allegations he had rorted his
          parliamentary expenses. But his replacement, Marise Payne, was not
          expected to enter the Senate until May 13.

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