Australian patient appeals for euthanasia

Crick (second from left) said her disease has reduced her to a 27 kg shell

BRISBANE, Australia -- An Australian cancer patient who has chronicled her physical disintegration on the Internet has appealed for help to end her life.

Nancy Crick, 70, who suffers from bowel cancer, asked on Monday that she be given a drug that would kill her painlessly, the Reuters news agency reports.

Crick, who has lost almost all her teeth and weighs just 27 kg, said she spends all night over the toilet bowl dealing with chronic vomiting and diarrhea.

"I made a promise to myself not to suffer another winter. Shortly I will keep that promise. It is my life, my choice," Crick was quoted by Reuters as saying.

Crick's desire to end her life has thrown euthanasia back into the spotlight in Australia where the government previously vetoed a law that had briefly made assisted suicide legal.

Crick has documented her physical disintegration on her website www.nancycrick.com where the grandmother talks of the indignity of her disintegration as the cancer eats away at her life.

"This type of future would not be visited on a pet or farm animal. Compassionate vets will not let this happen, they gently euthanize our animals," she told reporters outside her house in Queensland.

"Why then is it so unreasonable to expect compassionate doctors to do the same for human beings?"

Unmoved

Queensland authorities, however, are unmoved by her appeal.

"A woman is dying and the state government wants to be as sensitive and caring as possible," state premier Peter Beattie told Reuters.

"But I have already signalled the government won't be changing the law, therefore the police and DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) have a responsibility to enforce the law."

Australia's outback Northern Territory became is first place in the world to legalize voluntary euthanasia in 1996. But the federal government overturned the law in 1997 after four terminally ill patients had taken their own lives.

Suicide is not illegal in Australia, and helping someone to die is punishable by life in jail.

On Monday, a man pleaded guilty before a court in the southern state of Victoria to helping his HIV-positive male partner to die, Australian media reported.

The landmark case is the first time someone has actually been charged in Australia with assisting a suicide.

Helping Crick

Crick has found an ally in Philip Nitschke, Australia's very own 'Dr. Death.'

Nitschke and pro-euthanasia supporters are selling dozens of keys to Crick's front door in a bid to frustrate attempts by police to find those present at her death and charge them with assisting her suicide.

"When the time comes, only 20 close friends will be there, but the plethora of keys will make it hard to prove who was actually present," Nitschke, told Reuters.

Nitschke has assisted several mercy killings in the past, including those in the Northern Territory.

"She's made it quite clear that she wants to end the discomfort and suffering," Nitschke told said.

A strong advocate of legalizing euthanasia in the country, he is Australia's answer to United States' Dr. Jack Kevorkian.

Kevorkian, a retired U.S. pathologist, was sentenced to life in prison, and was convicted of murder in the second degree in the death of 52-year-old Thomas Youk, who was suffering from a degenerative brain disease.

Kevorkian injected Youk with a lethal cocktail of chemicals and videotaped the death. The video was shown two months later on CBS' "60 Minutes," which caused a public uproar.

Network race

No firm deadline has been set for Crick's date with death, but already television stations from as far away as Japan and the United States have shown interest in documenting her suicide.

John Edge, a Queensland representative of Northern Territory-based pro-euthanasia organisation EXIT (Australia), told reporters that one television station was a frontrunner to film the suicide.

"NHK from Japan wanted to send a team out to do a preview with Nancy and there's offers coming in from America," Edge was quoted as saying by Australia's The Age.com.

But many fear that this kind of practice could set a precedent of what is described as 'chequebook journalism.'

"I suppose it's fairly obvious that someone is going to start offering money but what happens if they start doing that, I don't know," he added.

Media outlets are reportedly seeking legal advice on whether they could be liable for prosecution if they attend Crick's suicide.

Sensitive issue

Euthanasia is a sensitive topic that has triggered passionate reactions from all parts of the globe.

On March 23, a High court in London ruled to allow a woman to switch her life support noting that she had been unlawfully kept alive against her wishes.

The woman, known only as Miss B, is unable to breathe unaided after a blood vessel that ruptured in her neck left her paralyzed for over a year.

But in France, French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner ruled out the legalization of euthanasia, saying the ill must actually be protected.

Kouchner's statement came as surprise to many, especially since he has carried out mercy killing in the past while serving as a doctor in the war zones of Vietnam and Lebanon.

In the U.S., many states remain opposed to legalize euthanasia for fear of a backlash from vocal ethics groups.

Oregon is the only state in the nation that allows assisted suicide, which approved the Death With Dignity Act in 1997.