ARTICLES

Teen Suicide Booster Comes to Mission Bay

Local Hemlock Folks Caught Off Guard

By Robert Kumpel

On January 9-12, America's largest euthanasia advocacy group, the Hemlock Society, will hold a conference at the Bahia Hotel in San Diego. One of the guest speakers will be Dr. Philip Nitschke, president of the Voluntary Euthanasia Research Foundation of Australia. A physician known as Australia's "Dr. Death," Nitschke gained notoriety for advocating unrestricted suicide rights for teenagers in the late 90s.

Scheduled as one of two panelists in a discussion entitled, "What's New In Hastening the Dying Process," Nitschke is scheduled to appear with assisted-suicide advocate John Hofsess on Sunday January 12th. The moderator of the discussion will be Hemlock Society founder Derek Humphrey. The internet page advertising the conference lists Nitschke as the only doctor to implement Australia's Rights of the Terminally Ill Act until it was revoked by the government in 1991. It also lauds him for establishing euthanasia clinics across Australia and New Zealand for his research program that "focuses on clients' needs for empowering technologies."

One of the "technologies" that has gained Nitschke notoriety is the "Exit Bag". A device designed specifically for suicide, the Exit Bag features terrycloth and felt padding at its neck for comfort and a Velcro fastener to ensure asphyxiation. The bag was manufactured in Canada by the Right to Die Network of Canada and was exported by mail to Australians until the negative publicity caused the network to suspend all exports. Nitschke stepped in and unveiled an Exit Bag of his own at a press conference in August 2002 while boasting of 150 advance orders for the device.

Nitschke is currently under investigation for his role in the orchestrated death of Nancy Crick, a Queensland grandmother who solicited public sympathy for the cause of euthanasia by posting a diary on the internet about her struggle to end her life in the face of bowel cancer. Her autopsy revealed that she was, in fact, cancer-free. Nitschke developed a "Deliverance Machine" -- a computer-driven device that allows people to initiate their own lethal injections. He is planning a suicide-ship to allow anyone desiring suicide an opportunity to end it all in international waters, unrestrained by any country's laws. But what sets Nitschke apart from his other Hemlock Society friends are his views on making suicide an option for children.

In 1999 the Dutch government published a proposal to legalize suicide (already a widespread practice in the Netherlands) which included a provision for euthanasia for children. Even though Dutch babies who were born mentally retarded or with other disabilities were already being quietly euthanized with their parents' consent, the new legislation sought to give children between the ages of 12 and 16 the right to seek assisted suicide from a doctor, even if their parents objected. In August, 1999, the Age, an Australian newspaper, published a story entitled, "Children should have the right to die: Euthanasia Campaigner" in which Nitschke is quoted as saying, "I think the Dutch government has taken a very courageous step."

In a June 5, 2001 interview with the National Review, Nitschke was discussing the need for what he calls the "peaceful pill" -- an over-the-counter suicide tablet that would be available to anyone at any time, regardless of suicide laws. When asked by National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez if he thought there should be any restrictions on who could commit suicide, Nitschke replied: "My personal position is that if we believe that there is a right to life, then we must accept that people have a right to dispose of that life whenever they want. (In the same way as the right to freedom of religion has implicit the right to be an atheist, and the right to freedom of speech involves the right to remain silent). I do not believe that telling people they have a right to life while denying them the means, manner, or information necessary for them to give this life away has any ethical consistency. So all people qualify, not just those with the training, knowledge, or resources to find out how to "give away" their life. And someone needs to provide this knowledge, training, or recourse necessary to anyone who wants it, including the depressed, the elderly bereaved, [and] the troubled teen. If we are to remain consistent and we believe that the individual has the right to dispose of their life, we should not erect artificial barriers in the way of sub-groups who don't meet our criteria.

"This would mean 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."

After explaining how such easy access to suicide would benefit society, Nitschke goes on to say: "Any position other than this leads to considerable debate about where exactly the cut-off point should be. All the legislative models in existence (Oregon, the Netherlands, and the past law in the Northern Territory of Australia) have attempted to do just that -- define this eligible sub-group -- i.e., terminally ill, not depressed, over 18, articulate, and lucid, etc., etc., and laws that attempt to do this produce a great deal of confusion in the gray areas of the cut-off. What about psychic suffering from mental illness? What about teenagers with terminal cancer; why should they have to wait till they're 18? What about the 95-year-old who is "tired of life" but not clinically depressed?"

While the image of a terminally-ill invalid seeking to end his life my elicit some public sympathy, the notion of a depressed teenager buying suicide pills at the market may prove to be a harder sell.

Sally Troy, president of San Diego's Hemlock Society chapter, sounded appalled when told of Nitschke's views on teen suicide. "Are you sure? I'd never heard that! I absolutely do not agree with that position! Oh, my goodness! I'd never heard that about Philip Nitschke, but I have sources I could check on that and call you back. Could you email me the information on that? I'll have this checked out and get back to you."

After I emailed several news stories about Nitschke to Troy, she called back a week later. "I'm surprised that Philip Nitschke said this, however, other countries have all kinds of different ideas. Like sometimes people say, 'Oh, look what happened in the Netherlands where somebody helped a person die who had psychiatric problems.' Well, if the Netherlands wants to do that, that's their business, but we don't believe in that. There are so many helps for psychiatric problems today. Certainly, in all of our literature, we are addressing mentally competent adults. If someone is not mentally competent to make that decision, well, we just don't serve that kind of clientele. We want them to know exactly what they're doing and describe what their symptoms are.

"But we have never even mentioned suicide for teenagers as an appropriate thing because, as I said, a mentally competent person should make that choice. If I see him (Nitschke) personally, and I probably will, I will certainly talk to him about this and I'm sure it will come up in his talk, you know, 'Why did you say this?' You know, Kevorkian did a lot of bizarre things, and the Hemlock society never openly supported Kevorkian. Many of the members thought he was a hero and supported him, but I'm sure Philip will be getting lots of flak about this. In a sense, it does harm our movement, because even though another country is different -- of course, Australia has never accepted Nitschke -- but I will certainly be talking to him about it. When he was asked to be a speaker, none of this had come out, and he was asked about a year ago. In the past, I have not known of anything that he proposed that would be at great odds with the Hemlock Society's mission. He was a speaker here a few years ago, and nothing he said at that time was outlandish and he never mentioned anything about teenage suicide or giving any approval to that. He has been on a research group to try to find a way for people ending their life that would not be in conflict with, say, John Ashcroft. If there was some kind of pill that would be legal and not a schedule II narcotic, people would like to know about that. There are not very many, but there are some people who are in excruciating pain that cannot be controlled by hospice. And some people are not terminally ill but have chronic problems, and they just don't want to live their life that way anymore, and we believe that should have access to a means of ending their life. If the Supreme Court says that Ashcroft is right that no physician can prescribe a lethal dosage of pain medication, and that's not a proper use of that drug, then we won't even have Oregon. Then what are people going to do? So there are a number of people throughout the world who are working on this particular research project."

The conference's host hotel, the Bahia in Mission Beach, is owned by Evans Hotels, a local company that also owns and operates the Lodge at Torrey Pines, the Catamaran, and the Newport Dunes Resort and Marina. Matt Willamson, an employee in Evans' marketing department, was not aware of the conference and sounded genuinely shocked when told of Nitschke's views: "I didn't even know that the conference was scheduled, so I cannot comment, but I can tell you that our hotels do not advocate that sort of thing in any way. The appropriate person to speak to would be our executive vice-president of sales and marketing, Steve Pelzer."

Pelzer called back 15 minutes later. Speaking in an aggressive tone, Pelzer took the stance of moral indifference: "We have no view, to speak of, on this sort of thing. This is a group that has booked the hotel, and I will give the phone number of the organization, and you are free to contact them and ask for their views."

When I informed him that my concern wasn't so much with the conference as with one of its speakers, he cut me off: "I can't speak to their speakers -- I didn't book them. We book the group, we contract the rooms, and that's all we do. For me to comment on what they're doing or who their speakers are is not my place. That's not what we do. If you have a question or concern about that, you should deal directly with them."

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