October 3, 2014
Call for prisoners with no release prospects to be given option of euthanasia
CHRIS UHLMANN: Euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke has called for Australian prisoners, jailed with no prospect of release, to be given the option of euthanasia.
It follows a decision in Belgium to allow a killer jailed for the rest of his life for horrific crimes to kill himself – assisted by doctors under Belgium’s controversial euthanasia laws.
But Dr Nitschke concedes Australia is a long way off that.
Louise Crealy reports.
LOUISE CREALY: Frank van den Bleeken has spent the past 23 hours of every day in a tiny Belgian prison cell. First imprisoned at 21 for sexual offences, he was released but later raped and killed a 19-year-old.
Released again seven years later, he attacked three people within weeks, including an 11-year-old girl.
After that he was locked up indefinitely.
Now, the Belgian courts have granted van den Bleeken the right to die with the help of prison doctors, rather than face what he describes as the unbearable psychological suffering of life in jail.
It’s a move that’s paving the way for at least 15 similar requests from other inmates and has applauded by Australian euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke.
PHILIP NITSCHKE: Look when I first heard that the prisoner was going to be allowed to have his request to have a peaceful death respected I was very pleased in the sense that it was something that I believed for some time that a person who is incarcerated for an indefinite period and that’s certainly his case.
LOUISE CREALY: Dr Nitschke says a similar option should be available to those jailed indefinitely in this country although he admits such talk is a while off.
PHILIP NITSCHKE: Australia is so far behind, we can’t even in Australia, get to the point where a person is terminally ill, clearly asking for help to put an end to their suffering and have lawful help to end their lives. I mean we can’t even get to the most basic step.
People do have the right, people that are able to express clear intention, do have the right to determine when their suffering is so great, they should be able to take the step of putting an end to it and when the state goes down this path, as we certainly do in Australia, goes down this path of incarcerating people, life without parole in to her words, people that we are now going to lock up forever, but at the same time, not offer them any opportunity to take this, to take the step of being able to end their lives, in other words to maximise their suffering.
To me, that’s equivalent to torture and I think it’s something that the state should not be involved in. We’ve had a couple of examples here.
I was contacted by Jonothan Horrocks, a lifer in Barwon Prison over a decade ago asking me about this very issue. We’ve got prisoners in South Australian jails, the Snowtown murders deemed never to be released and in those situations even an attempt recently to access basic communications with pen pals in other countries was denied by the state.
So it looks to me like the state is not only prepared to incarcerate people forever in certain circumstances, but to try and maximise the suffering of those individuals and I don’t think we should have any part of that, at least in these situations, offer these poor people the option of a peaceful death.
LOUISE CREALY: The controversial campaigner was back in the headlines this weekend with reports he’s being investigated by police in every Australian state over his role in nearly 20 deaths over the past three years, but he brushed off the controversy as a hazard of the job
PHILIP NITSCHKE: I run an organisation which its purpose is to make sure that people can access a peaceful death at the time of their choosing. So it’s not surprising I guess that many of our members take that opportunity, they work out, they obtain the best means and they then take that step.
CHRIS UHLMANN: Dr Philip Nitschke speaking to Louise Crealy.