October 28, 2016
False checkpoint targeting VE supporters part of investigation, NZ police confirm
A false police checkpoint set up by police to target euthanasia supporters is part of a police investigation into a suspected assisted suicide in June, police have confirmed. Wellington Acting District Commander Paul Basham also confirmed that further deaths are being investigated as part of Operation Painter. “When we become aware of information that people […]
October 27, 2016
NZ Police admit using checkpoint to target euthanasia meeting attendees
Police have admitted they used a breath-testing checkpoint to target people who had attended an Exit International euthanasia meeting. The move has been criticised as an “unlawful checkpoint to interrogate pensioners” by one lawyer, while another said it was probably a breach of police powers. A complaint has already been laid with the Independent Police Conduct Authority about the officers’ […]
October 25, 2016
The VSED Exit
The VSED Exit: A Way to Speed Up Dying, Without Asking Permission reports the New York Times Del Greenfield had endured repeated bouts of cancer over four decades, yet kept working as a peace activist in Portland, Ore., into her 80s. “She was a powerful force,” said her daughter, Bonnie Reagan. But in 2007, Ms. […]
October 24, 2016
Did police use booze checkpoint to target elderly women at euthanasia meeting?
Wellington police may have used an alcohol checkpoint to gather information about elderly women attending euthanasia meetings. The women had been attending an Exit International meeting on a Sunday afternoon early early this month in the Lower Hutt suburb of Maungaraki. As they left, about 4pm, all were pulled over at the checkpoint and – before being […]
October 24, 2016
Nitschke’s Handbook sold to different buyer
Caroline Overington, The Australian
Could there be two families with the unusual surname Manrique, both in Sydney, both seeking advice on how to die peacefully? It seemed unlikely, and so when Exit International founder Philip Nitschke heard a family of that name had died of deliberate carbon monoxide poisoning, he assumed it was the same ÂManrique who had downloaded […]
September 24, 2016
Should Age be Relevant to the Right to Die?
Fiona Stewart, Sydney Morning Herald
Twenty years ago this week Darwin man Bob Dent became the first person in the world to receive a legal, lethal voluntary injection under the Northern Territory’s Rights of the Terminally Ill Act. The act was a carefully drafted piece of legislation that allowed a terminally ill person, of sound mind, to ask a doctor […]
September 9, 2016
Philip Nitschke returns to Australia
Philip Nitschke, who burned his medical licence rather than stop advising terminally ill patients on suicide, is touring Australia before a major conference on “rational suicide”. Dr Nitschke, who now lives in the Netherlands, will host the two-day conference at Victoria’s State Library in Melbourne later this month. The conference, titled ‘Voluntary Euthanasia to Rational […]
August 29, 2016
Are we asking the wrong question on Dying with Dignity?
Dr Deb Campbell, Rationalist Society of Australia
Television producer and performer Andrew Denton has provided us all with some useful and important information about voluntary euthanasia in his podcast series and book, and has asked some interesting questions. Unfortunately they are not the questions about dying with dignity that actually need to be answered. Andrew is proposing a bureaucratic, literally tortuous process […]