"A person commits an offence under section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961 if he or she does an act capable of encouraging or assisting the suicide or attempted suicide of another person, and that act was intended to encourage or assist suicide or an attempt at suicide. This offence is referred to in this policy as "encouraging or assisting suicide". The consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is required before an individual may be prosecuted."
Policy for Prosecutors in Respect of Cases of Encouraging or Assisting SuicideWhat follows is my report of the public meeting held by Exit International and addressed by Dr Philip Nitschke this past Saturday at the Dragon Hall Community Centre. It's not too late to make your complaints known to Dragon Hall. They hosted Nitschke last year too, so it's likely they'll host him again. I called them last week and they dismissed my concerns out of hand. They're less likely to do so if lots of people contact them. My notes are in square brackets and in red [like this].
For background on Dr Nitschke you can see Dr Peter Saunders' recent post, a post by Wesley Smith earlier this year, a post by Alex Schadenberg or just search around - there's plenty out there and he tends not to hold back from saying what he thinks.
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Tom Curran of Exit International Europe welcomed and introduced Dr Nitschke.
He said: "The concept of Exit is to provide information to help people make end of life choices". He stressed that it wasn't about prompting people one way or the other but about giving them information to make good decisions. [Tom knew and I knew that the only information that was going to be presented was information about how to kill yourself. Where's the helping to make good decisions in that?]
Dr Nitschke introduced the topic of the meeting as 'why it makes sense for every elderly or ill adult to know how they could peacefully and reliably end their life'. He said that he hoped everybody in the room would agree with him. [Please note: apparently this isn't encouraging suicide - it's just telling you how best to do it if you decide you want to. OKAY?...].
Dr Nitschke said that one of the difficulties surrounding the way you end your life is the structure of the law. He cited the UK Criminal Law 1961, Section 2. In light of this he urged the audience not to wait until you're sick to organise your end of life decision, because if you do you may need to involve somebody else and this still runs a legal risk. [Nitschke just told you to go out and get the necessary means to kill yourself. He's not just telling you how to do it, but he's telling you to make sure you have the means available should you decide you want to kill yourself. You see it's all about you. And how do you know that? Because Dr Nitschke told you so.]
Dr Nitschke analysed the recent guidelines on the prosecution of assisted suicide and said that it was a negative aspect of the guidelines that people could be punished for assiting in suicide if they encouraged the person to commit suicide, or if they could benefit financially from the person's death. [Nitschke isn't concerned about people being encouraged to commit suicide and the impact this might have on them. He doesn't think it's a problem if people who can gain financially from the death of another encourages that person to die. Could that be because he makes his living encouraging people to die?]
Dr Nitschke turned his attention to the 1996 law in the Northern Territory, Australia, where euthanasia was temporarily legalised. He said that the reason for the creation of the computer programme to administer death was that he found the responsibility of personally delivering death almost crippling. He said that nobody wanted someone to administer the lethal injection. The purpose of the suicide machine was to make sure a lucid person makes a free and independent choice to end their lives. [If this is a normal and good thing then why is it so difficult? If Nitschke's happy to assist with this process then why was personally delivering death almost crippling? How does he know that the person operating the machine was perfectly lucid and making an independent choice? They could be under pressure from someone else. They could be tied to the machine. They could be operating it drunk or stoned or exhausted or during a period of mental illness. People drive cars and operate machinery while in such states, so I'm sure they could answer questions on a computer.]
Dr Nitschke said that he thought the reason that the suicide machine couldn't be displayed in a museum in Sydney was that it was an icon of Australia's history and that Australia is not yet comfortable with its own history. [*cringe*]
Nitschke stressed that the world has changed a lot since 1996 with euthanasia now legal in six places including Holland, Belgium and Oregon. [Yep. And we all know how things work in those places...]
Dr Nitschke then turned his attention to the case of Graham Wylie. Graham was diagnosed with alzheimers and decided to commit suicide before his mental health deteriorated further. Dr Nitschke explained that Graham twice failed in attempts to commit suicide. He described Graham as "desperate, uninformed and crazy". At this point Dr Nitschke told the audience what he considered to be the best way to die and told us that he said seen a lot of people die adopting this particular method. Dr Nitschke explained that Graham Wylie enlisted the help of two women to help him kill himself. After assisting the death of Mr Wylie they were charged and found guilty. The judge delayed his sentence and in that period one of the women committed suicide. The other was given a two year periodic prison sentence - meaning part-time or weekend prison. The point was, Dr Nitschke said, her life was ruined through losing her job, getting a criminal record, etc. Dr Nitschke blamed this unfortunate sequence of events on Graham Wylie not taking care of things properly himself. He told the audience "don't sit on your hands and do nothing until it's too late. Don't do a Graham Wylie!" [Dr Nitschke tells you how to kill yourself, he tells you how to get what you need, he tells you to get what you need without delay and if you do decide to go through with it he'll watch you as you die, but he won't encourage you to commit suicide. No siree! Furthest thing from his mind and his intention. Er?
Oh and if that isn't enough if you fail to do any of the above without sufficient poise he will criticise you in public for ruining the lives of those encouraging you to commit suicide. Nice...]
Dr Nitschke explained that there were groups in society who had access to lethal drugs and encouraged those who knew such people well to put pressure on them to give them illegal, lethal drugs. [Nitschke encouraged his audience to get illegal substances by illegal means and to put pressure on others to assist them in their crimes.]
Dr Nitschke told us the story of a friend of his who had decided to end his life and sought Dr Nitschke's advice as to the best way to go about it. Dr Nitschke told him the best way to do it, but the man didn't think it would be possible for him. After a little while the man's wife spoke to Dr Nitschke in another room. She said she could get hold of the necessary drug because she had an affair with someone who had access to it and that he owed her a favour. The audience burst into laughter at this point. [It's at moments like this when you realise just how darkened ordinary peoples' consciences have become. What is funny about the described scenario? A man wants to kill himself, is being encouraged to do so illegally by a trained doctor and is only facilitated in doing so because of his wife's past affair. That affair will now bear the rotten fruit of enabling her to assist the suicide of her husband. What is funny about that?]
Dr Nitschke said that the government was wrong to think that promoting the sort of information he promotes would cause more suicides. He said that this sort of information keeps people alive longer. [aha! Don't you see? Why it's so obvious. Promote choosing your own death as your right to do whenever you want, tell people exactly how to do it either 'legally' or illegally and hey presto! you're in the life-saving business son! You look confused. I don't blame you...]
Dr Nitschke informed the group of the numerous different names used for lethal illegal drugs in countries where they were more easily available than in the UK. He explained that some drugs were now being sent in powdered form via letters and were therefore harder to trace by authorities. Dr Nitschke informed the group that he would show them how to test powdered drugs for purity in the following seminar. [All of this was in the newsletter which I alerted Dragon Hall Community Centre to prior to the event. Didn't bother them. Some 'community' centre...]
Dr Nitschke then restated the need to change the law, but also explored what he considers to be the limitations of euthanasia legislation. The first issue he identified was that euthanasia and assisted suicide legislation always involves safety checks and assessments of those wishing to die by medical professionals. He said that patients don't like this, they just want to be helped to die. He also said that legislation would only help [meaning help to kill] the extremely sick. Dr Nitschke said that there are good non-medical reasons for wanting to kill yourself and asked rhetorically "what has it got to do with the medical professionals?" [He has said this before. He's on record as saying that depressed teenagers should have access to the suicide pill and that he's in favour of it being available at supermarkets].
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Please write to the venues still due to host Nitschke and also write to the venues which have already done so. It's likely that he will try to use them again. Also please write to local representatives in York and anybody you think might be able to alert people to the danger of allowing Dr Nitschke a public platform.
- London, 12 Nov: Dragon Hall info@dragonhall.org.uk
- Eastbourne, 14 Nov: Eastbourne Riviera Hotel eastbourneriviera@yahoo.co.uk
- Edinburgh, 19 Nov: St Mark’s Artspace enquire@edinburgh-unitarians.org.uk
- York, 21 Nov: Priory Street Centre psc@yorkcvs.org.uk
I'll be writing later about the conclusion of Dr Nitschke's speech, my interaction with him after his talk and my reflections on this sad event.
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