Generating more trouble for our teens
by Michael Cook
Canberra Times, 3 June 2003

DR PHILIP NITSCHKE deserves a gong for gaucherie in christening his international voluntary euthanasia conference in Sydney last weekend "Killing me Softly: Love, Death and Dying in Australia". There he launched his DIY suicide machine, a carbon monoxide generator which his fans can build themselves for less than $100.

What would Roberta Flack say if she knew that her 1973 hit song was being used to market suicide? Given that her accompanying vocalist, Donny Hathaway, jumped to his death from a 15th-floor window a few years later, she might describe it as painfully inappropriate.

For anyone acquainted with Nitschke's curriculum mortis, though, the link with female pain and death is a familiar one. Last year, his conference literature boasted, seven people died "very public deaths" through suicide presumably under his inspiration and six of them were women. The 6:1 females-to-males ratio is all out of kilter with the national suicide rate for Australians aged 65 and over, which is around 1 female for 28 males. What is it that elderly women find so fascinating about Nitschke's big brown eyes? I can't see it myself it must be a girl thing.

The "Killing Me Softly" conference complements workshops in all capital cities later in the year at which people can learn how to build the CO generators. These workshops are worse than creepy. They're a serious danger to emotionally vulnerable Australians.

Since 1998 Nitschke has been advising seriously ill people how to die. Now the good doctor aspires to extend his services wider. According to his promotional literature, "a complimentary [sic] service was also required for those who are not sick". To that end, Nitschke will be lecturing on "the peaceful pill" and "non-pharmacological methods" to snuff yourself such as the CO generator and his exit suicide bag.

So, at long last, the scope of Nitschke's ambitions is clear he has his heart set on becoming a universal suicide provider. Everyone deserves a crack at it, regardless of state of health, state of mind or even age.

Nitschke's market is basically the elderly. What happens when he swaps Roberta Flack for Kurt Cobain and launches a youth outreach service?

These are no longer the loopy visions of a wild-eyed crusader.

Sounds preposterous?

It certainly does, but the good doctor is firmly on the record as backing the right of young people to access to materials for suicide.

Back in 2001, Nitschke told an American magazine, the National Review, that everyone has a right to die on demand. The provider's job is to supply the "knowledge, training, or recourse necessary to anyone who wants it, including the depressed, the elderly bereaved, [and] the troubled teen".

If this doesn't take your breath away, what about his belief that the "entire population" should have access to light-and-easy suicide? Incredibly, he contended that "the so-called 'peaceful pill' should be available in the supermarket so that those old enough to understand death could obtain death peacefully at the time of their choosing".

The problem is that these are no longer the loopy visions of a wild-eyed crusader. The workshops Nitschke is organising are bringing them closer to reality. If he spruces up his somewhat nerdy image, he might attract a good number of "troubled teens" to his workshops. There they would learn how to put plastic bags over their heads or gas themselves. Is this perhaps why he booked "Killing Me Softly" into the YWCA conference centre?

The scandal surrounding the resignation of the Governor-General shows that the public is serious about eradicating child sexual abuse. What about youth-suicide abuse in a country which has one of the highest rates in the developed world? Up to now the wily Nitschke has avoided prosecution. If federal and state governments really want to prevent the biggest child abuse of all, they must enact laws which will land Nitschke in jail if he advises vulnerable people to die.

By his own lights the persuasive Nitschke is not a bad man. He is said to have a compassionate bedside manner. But he is out of touch with community standards on the value of human life. His campaign of civil disobedience is certain to result in the deaths of emotionally vulnerable youth to say nothing of the elderly. If he persists, he ought to be quarantined. And lest he have compassion on distressed prisoners, his guards should make sure that the other inmates are wearing slippers and not lace-ups.

Michael Cook is editor of the e-mail newsletter Australasian Bioethics Information.mcook@australasianbioethics.org