Campaigners Rally Round Right-To-Die Woman
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com Pacific Rim Bureau Chief
March 26, 2002

Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Pro-lifers in Australia have called on the authorities to clamp down on tactics being used by pro-euthanasia campaigners in support of a woman with terminal bowel cancer who plans to take her life within the next few weeks.

In an attempt to get around a law that could see anyone at the Nancy Crick's bedside when she dies risking life imprisonment, campaigners are selling copies of her front door key. The idea is for scores of people to claim to have been with her at the final moment, to frustrate any attempts by police to discover who was actually present.

In what she said was her last outing, 70-year-old Crick made an appearance Monday at a pro-euthanasia rally in Australia's Queensland state, where she told cheering supporters that she would kill herself once she gets her hands on the powerful barbiturate, Nembutal.

"I made a promise to myself not to suffer another [southern hemisphere] winter and shortly I will keep that promise. It is my life, my choice."

She had been planning to end her life on April 10, but has now learned that Nembutal would be "the best drug available." Crick asked the audience in anyone could help supply her with a lethal dose, to enable her to take her life soon.

She has made a similar plea on a website diary which she began in early February to recount her experience.

In a recent diary entry, Crick wrote that she had discovered from a book on euthanasia that Nembutal was "the premier drug for self-deliverance" and more effective than morphine.

"The author warns ... some patients have taken enough morphine to kill an elephant but have awakened after a few days. Their systems had become tolerant of the drug."

Crick's case emerged early this year, when euthanasia advocates adopted her as a symbol of the political campaign to have euthanasia legalized.

Australia's Northern Territory was in 1996 the location of the world's first doctor-assisted suicide law. It was subsequently overturned by a conservative federal government, but not before four people had taken their lives, using Nembutal.

The doctor who worked to have the law introduced and helped the four patients die, Philip Nitschke, is heading the Crick campaign. He and others say euthanasia occurs daily in Australia anyway, but without the necessary legislation to regulate it.

Addressing Monday's rally, Nitschke said Australia's laws were unjust and should be broken.

"I watched those callous bastards put down the most progressive piece of legislation this country has ever seen," he said of the short-lived Northern Territory law.

Nitschke said the idea of selling copies of Crick's front door key was largely symbolic. Only about 20 close friends would be at her bedside when she died. But 200 copies of the key have been cut and more than 50 have already been sold.

"These people are taking some risks, and the more people that take those risks, the safer it becomes."

Queensland law provides for life jail terms for anyone who advises, counsels or assists someone to take their life. At issue is whether merely sitting with someone provides them with psychological support, and could therefore be a indictable offense.

'Sick and sad'

Queensland's state government has expressed sympathy for Crick's condition, but says her campaign will not force a change in the state's laws. Police have also questioned both Crick and Nitschke, and filmed Monday's rally.

But pro-lifers, who protested outside the rally, think the police should be taking tougher action against the activists.

Graham Preston, Queensland co-ordinator of Right to Life Australia, said the authorities should pursue Nitschke and other organizers for "perverting the course of justice."

"We can't allow people to use tricks like this to evade the law," he said, in reference to the sale of door keys.

Margaret Tighe, national president of Right to Life Australia, called the affair a "sick and sad media circus," and said the police should be ordered to put an end to it.

"If the police are witnesses to a suicide attempt, they are legally required to prevent it," she said in a phone interview.

"I'd suspect Dr. Philip Nitschke is very much behind it. It's a bizarre media stunt aimed at pressuring the Queensland government to legalize patient killing."

Tighe said she doubted the Crick case would win many new supporters for the voluntary euthanasia campaign.

She recalled a high-profile TV advertising campaign in 1999, when an Australian woman with bladder cancer was used by a pro-euthanasia group to promote the right-to-die idea.

Seven months later, June Burns was in remission, had put on weight, and was no longer suffering from the pain so visible in the ads. She remains an advocate of euthanasia but said she was glad to be alive.

Putting down animals

Nembutal (sodium pentobarbital) is no longer legally available in Australia, except to veterinarians for use in putting down animals.

The drug, which is one of those prescribed by doctors in Oregon under that state's Death With Dignity Act, generally induces a coma within minutes and death in hours.

Tighe noted that euthanasia campaigners in Australia have been promoting the slogan: "I'd rather die like a dog."

"The interesting thing is, dogs are put down for a whole host of reasons, sometimes simply because they're a nuisance ..."

Pro-lifers argue that legalizing euthanasia would put the most vulnerable members of society, the ill and the elderly, at risk from those around them who may hold different views about relative quality of life.

Nitschke says Australian opinion surveys generally reflect 75-80 per cent support for the right of assisted suicide for those suffering a terminal illness.

But Tighe pointed out that when Nitschke recently stood for election to the South Australia state legislature, on an independent, euthanasia platform, he obtained just 1.2 per cent of the vote.

"Political observers were amazed that he got such a low vote. People thought that he had had a very good chance of being elected."

Green Party lawmakers in at least two of Australia's five states, New South Wales and Western Australia, are planning to introduce euthanasia bills this year.

See also:
Cancer Patient Plans Suicide for Sake of Legalizing Euthanasia (Feb. 8, 2002)
World Medical Body Calls On Doctors To Shun Euthanasia (May 9, 2001)



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