December 4, 2014
I helped my best friend die: Lesley Basset is the face of Exit UK
Lesley Bassett, the face of the first UK chapter of Exit, a euthanasia group that campaigns for legal suicide, on why her best friend’s death and her role in it changed the course of her life. Lesley Bassett is nervous, but hiding it behind a welcoming smile. It’s a wet Saturday morning in October, and […]
November 28, 2014
Precedent cited in Philip Nitschke case overturned
Amy Corderoy, The Sydney Morning Herald
A controversial ruling that a doctor has a duty to help strangers who are not their patients has been overturned in the Supreme Court. The decision has the potential to change the way doctors are expected to behave in emergencies, and might have ramifications for euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke, who has been suspended for failing […]
November 21, 2014
Ethical duty to rescue: court of appeal
Much discussion followed the 2013 decision Medical Board of Australia v Dekker [2013] WASAT 182, a conduct matter following an incident in which a practitioner failed to stop and render assistance after a ‘near miss’ incident involving her motor vehicle and a second motor vehicle. For that earlier decision see http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/wa/WASAT/2013/182.html In a judgment delivered […]
November 21, 2014
AMA is out of step with the community by opposing voluntary euthanasia
Terry Sweetman, The Courier Mail
POPE Francis was preaching to the immovable last week when he declared assisted suicide was a symptom of a “throw-away culture’’. But opinion polls suggest that, like the Catholic ruling on contraception, injunctions against voluntary euthanasia might increasingly be more honoured in the breach than the observance. The Pope doggedly called on doctors to take […]
November 19, 2014
Rational suicide is a challenge that we must face
Philip Nitschke, Sydney Morning Herald
The debate in recent weeks about end-of-life choices has undoubtedly raised some uncomfortable issues. While some have accused me of expounding black-white views on rational suicide, snidely remarking that such opinions belong in first-year university philosophy, the conversation started with my trial in Darwin over my medical registration is far from Voluntary Euthanasia 101. Rather, […]
November 18, 2014
Nembutal Patient Investigated by AHPRA
Flynn Murphy, The Medical Observer
THE sister of a motor neurone disease patient who took her own life says she was targeted by AHPRA investigators [led by Brett Judd who also goes by the assumed name of ‘Franklin Lebrowski’] who rummaged through her personal effects and recorded an interview with her without permission. Janine Wilson, 58-year-old sister of the late […]
November 18, 2014
A Clinical Jarring Decision on Rational Suicide
Can a person’s legal right to take their own life ever be a rational decision to the point that doctors are actually obligated to make no intervention? Should that decision – even if made by a person suffering no terminal illness – then be assisted? These almost philosophical questions dominated a three-day medical tribunal hearing […]
November 15, 2014
Philip Nitschke tribunal: Medical Board granted power to raid homes
Amy Corderoy, Sydney Morning Herald
The Medical Board of Australia has been granted the power to raid homes as part of its investigation into euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke. Janine Wilson, whose sister Wendy Benton died almost three years ago, said it was like being “burgled while you were watching” when officials turned up at her house two weeks ago to […]