Section 14

The Medical Council of NZ doesn’t want people hearing about euthanasia. They have written to the Ministry of Health claiming that Australian euthanasia advocate Dr Philip Nitschke would be practising medicine without a licence during a scheduled trip to New Zealand. He plans to hold two workshops for Exit International.

Dr Nitschke’s last visit to New Zealand in February last year was met with the same response from the Medical Council but the Ministry of Health declined to prosecute, citing insufficient evidence.

Dr Nitschke says that his visit is not illegal: “It’s ridiculous to suggest that the provision of general information about, for example, Switzerland - where assisted suicide is legal - or Mexico … in any way constitutes medical practice. This is a matter of free speech.” (Dominion Post, Jan 24, pA10.)

Following his experiences in Australia’s Northern Territory, Dr Nitschke claims he has given up on political efforts to legalise euthanasia. He is now focussing his efforts on the development and promotion of the “Peaceful Pill”, which would present doctors and politicians with a fait accompli, rendering euthanaisia laws obsolete.

His book, Killing Me Softly, promises “a future where a ‘Peaceful Pill’ could revolutionise euthanasia just as the contraceptive pill revolutionised birth control a generation ago.”

Dr Nitschke claims that doctors have a stranglehold on the dying process and regard death as an affront to their profession to the point that they will completely ignore a patient’s wish to die peacefully at a time of their own choosing. The Medical Council looks as if it’s keen to maintain that stranglehold and is quite happy to use the power of the state to silence its critics.

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