X-Message-Number: 6628
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 13:01:47 -0700
From: David Brandt-Erichsen <>
Subject: Australia law

The following news story on the Northern Territory court ruling was carried
by Reuters (July 24). It contains a few more details than the Associated
Press report posted earlier.

----------

CANBERRA, Australia.  An Australian provincial court Wednesday upheld the
world's first voluntary euthanasia laws, but the emotional battle over
assisted suicide is now set to go to the country's highest court.
Pro-euthanasia doctor Philip Nitschke, dubbed "Dr. Death" by critics, told
Reuters he hoped the decision would clear the way for terminally ill
patients to end their life.

"We have got to have a better chance today than we did yesterday," he said
by telephone from Darwin, capital of the Northern Territory.

The territory's Supreme Court ruled by two to one that the law was within
the territory parliament's power, rejecting a challenge by a coalition of
doctors, church and Aboriginal leaders.

The coalition's spokesman, Dr. Chris Wake, told Reuters the group would now
take its challenge to Australia's High Court and was confident of victory.
"We have only run a quarter of our argument and we believe we can win in the
High Court," he said by telephone.

Nitschke, who has several patients waiting to die, said he would immediately
renew his search for the two extra doctors needed to approve an assisted
suicide application.

"Whether it translates into signatures is the question."

The law, allowing terminally ill people to die by lethal injection or pills,
came into force July 1.  But it has not yet been used, with specialist
doctors unwilling to approve applications in the face of the legal challenge
and separate legislative threats in the territory and national parliaments.

Doctors have been warned they could face murder charges if they help a
patient die and the law is later overturned.

"There must be some specialists out there who feel awfully bloody guilty,"
Nitschke said. "We'll be asking them immediately where do they stand now?"

One of Nitschke's patients, cancer-stricken 66-year-old taxi driver Max
Bell, drove a battered taxi thousands of miles across harsh desert earlier
this month in a bid to be the first to use the law. But he returned home two
weeks ago after failing to find two specialists to support his bid.

"He's a real casualty of those who waited to the last minute (to challenge
the law)," Nitschke said.

Wake said Wednesday's dissenting judgement in support of the challenge was
encouraging for the High Court bid, due to begin within weeks. The coalition
argues that the law breaches what it says is an underlying right to life in
the national constitution.

The law has been condemned by Australia's religious, community and political
leaders, including Prime Minister John Howard, but is overwhelmingly popular
in opinion polls.

Howard, elected in March partly on a platform of conservative family values,
has backed plans by a government politician to introduce his own bill in
parliament for Canberra to override the territory's legislation.


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