02.50 am, Tuesday February 14 2012

Nitschke in UK for euthanasia workshop

22:18 AEDT Mon Mar 15 2010
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Australian right-to-die activist Dr Philip Nitschke has arrived in London to hold a workshop on voluntary euthanasia.

Dr Nitschke was detained in France as he prepared to travel to Britain, but released a short time later.

"We spent 12 hours detained at Heathrow a year ago and I spent half-an-hour detained as I tried to get on Eurostar in Paris two days ago while the authorities decided whether I was a fit and just person to come into your country," Dr Nitschke told Sky News on Monday.

"I was fortunate in that they - after much flurry of phone calls back and forth - decided that I could have a strict 10 days in Britain."

Dr Nitschke, director of assisted suicide group Exit International, rejected any suggestion that those attending the meeting were vulnerable.

"They (authorities) have allowed me to come in and I'm grateful for that because we've got a growing number of members of Exit and they want choices," he said.

"The best way to give them those choices is to be able to come here and run these sort of sessions so that they get their questions answered."

His arrival comes amid intense debate over assisted suicide in the UK.

After years of campaigning, multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy last year won a landmark court case forcing the government to say when it would be likely to prosecute in assisted suicide cases.

Guidelines released last month by Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC said that where the decision was "voluntary, clear, settled and informed", and where the person who helped them acted "wholly compassionately", prosecution was less likely.

But assisted suicide remains illegal with a possible jail term of 14 years.

ProLife Alliance chair Dominica Roberts objected to Dr Nitschke coming to the UK, saying: "I do think that perhaps he's not a desirable person to be allowed to come here frightening our disabled and elderly people".

Dying Well Group chairwoman Illora Finlay called for Dr Nitschke to be monitored while in Britain.

"I hope that he will be closely observed because I find the kind of suicide message that he's pedalling extremely worrying," she told Sky.

Baroness Finlay also said people didn't need to kill themselves to "die well".

"The vast majority of deaths in this country are now much, much more peaceful, much better than they used to be because of all of the advances that we've made within the medical care of people that are dying," she said.

 
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