X-Message-Number: 6075 Date: Tue, 16 Apr 1996 07:22:13 -0700 From: David Brandt-Erichsen <> Subject: Australia law The LA Times carried the following story (04/12/96) Terminally Ill Australians Head for "Death Capital" SYDNEY, Australia (Reuter) - Terminally ill Australians have begun travelling thousands of miles to an outback territory to end their lives under the world's first law that permits assisted suicide, a euthanasia group said Thursday. Up to 10 people, including some who have already arrived in the Northern Territory, are waiting for its controversial new euthanasia legislation to come into force in July, the territory's Voluntary Euthanasia Network told Reuters. In remarks that right-to-life campaigners say vindicates warnings of the Northern Territory becoming Australia's "death capital," a network spokesman said three people had already died in the province' s main city waiting for the law to take effect. "Right now there's one person here who's actually here and waiting," spokesman and prominent euthanasia advocate Dr. Philip Nitschke said by telephone from the city of Darwin, about 1,800 miles northwest of Sydney. The network knows of at least six others intending to travel to Darwin from states where assisted suicide is outlawed, he said, adding they were mostly elderly people with cancer. "There are probably more like 10 in various stages of urgency, " Nitschke said, adding that about 20 of the Northern Territory's 700 doctors were prepared to carry out euthanasia. The Northern Territory's new law, believed to be the first enacted to allow doctors to give lethal injections to patients, was passed in February. The provincial government announced Wednesday that it would come into force July 1. An opinion poll last year showed that more than 70 percent of Australians backed legal euthanasia, but the Northern Territory's legislation has stirred emotional debate, pitting churches and many doctors against supporters of euthanasia. The new law has also led politicians elsewhere in Australia to draft similar legislation, but Darwin officials fear some people will travel to the outback to end their lives rather than wait for euthanasia to be legalized in their home states. Official guidelines for access to assisted suicide in the Northern Territory have yet to be finalized but will be strict, including a requirement for a psychiatrist and two other doctors to vouch for the terminally ill person's mental health, said a spokeswoman for the Northern Territory's health minister. "We are really concerned that people inter-state and overseas realize they have got to wait and see what the rules are before they leave their homes and find they are in limbo," the spokeswoman told Reuters by phone from Darwin. "It would be really sad to make this trek without waiting for that (the guidelines to be issued)," he said. In the United States, a law created by a referendum in Oregon, the Death With Dignity Act, was struck down by a federal judge. In the Netherlands, euthanasia is technically illegal but there are guidelines under which charges will not be pursued. Australia's Right to Life Association, which had joined churches and the main doctors' lobby to oppose the new law, has likened the movement of terminally ill people to the Northern Territory as a form of "one way tourism." "You will see a whole congregation of people arriving up there, " said Kath Harrigan, a spokeswoman for Right to Life. "It will be wholesale killing of people." The Aids Council of New South Wales state said Thursday it strongly backed legal euthanasia for people with the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Two AIDS sufferers attempted suicide in Sydney every month, it said. Asked if AIDS sufferers would travel to Darwin to end their lives, council policy officer Geoffrey Bloom told Reuters: "It would not be surprising if there were some people who did that." <David Brandt-Erichsen> Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6075