June 15, 2014
Probe on euthanasia campaigner after friends’ suicide pact
The Herald Sun by Shelley Hadfield, 5 June 2014
A police investigation has begun into the deaths of two Melbourne women who obtained suicide devices from controversial euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke.
A letter left by one of the women details their suicide pact. One of the pair had Alzheimer’s disease, but the other was healthy.
Detectives this week asked Dr Nitschke, known as “Dr Death”, to explain how the friends obtained equipment they used to die.
Viewbank housemates Val Seeger, 75, and Claire Parsons, 66, died in March, but their case was never made public by authorities.
In a note posted to Dr Nitschke and signed by both women, Ms Parsons said they decided to take their own lives after Ms Seeger was diagnosed in March last year.
Ms Parsons said that after agreeing to help her friend end her life, she felt existing laws left her no choice but to take her own life too.
Dr Nitschke admitted the women obtained equipment from him that he knew could be used as a suicide device. He said he had sold the equipment – which the Herald Sun has chosen not to detail – throughout Australia.
And Dr Nitschke has defiantly revealed plans to open a euthanasia clinic in Melbourne, having inspected a potential site in Essendon this week.
A coronial probe on the deaths “including whether this was assisted suicide” is also under way, Coroners Court spokeswoman Sheree Argento said.
Dr Nitschke said the women – friends for 24 years – took their lives.
It is understood Ms Parsons, an academic and published author, forwarded the letter, titled “I Have a Friend”, to Dr Nitschke, asking it be passed on to news media.
Dr Nitschke says he received the letter after the women had died.
Assisting a suicide carries a maximum five-year jail term in Victoria.
Six people have been prosecuted for their involvement in a suicide pact, inciting suicide and aiding or abetting suicide in Victoria since 1997.
Controversial euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke.
Controversial euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke. Source: News Corp Australia
Senior Detective Emma Bennett, of Heidelberg CIU, said Dr Nitschke might be asked to make a statement in the investigation.
“The matter has to be thoroughly investigated to establish where they got (the equipment) from,” Sen-Det Bennett said.
Dr Nitschke said Ms Parsons felt she could not live without her best friend.
The two women were members of their local Exit International group.
Dr Nitschke, its founder and director, is a focus of three Medical Board of Australia inquiries.
“Suicide is not a crime. This is the only example of where assisting someone to do something lawful is a crime,” Dr Nitschke said.
“We are languishing in the dark ages here.”
Dr Nitschke, who has a clinic in Adelaide, said his proposed Melbourne advisory clinic would operate one day per month.
“It would be talking to people who are sick and considering what their options are,” he said.
His Voluntary Euthanasia Party was registered in Victoria yesterday. He hopes to run candidates at the election.
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WOMEN INTENT ON ENDING LIFE
CLAIRE Parsons could not be talked out of the pact she had with her best friend, euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke says.
Dr Nitschke said that people who had seen her the day before she ended her life reported that she was adamant, despite being perfectly healthy.
Her friend of 24 years, Val Seeger, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in March last year.
Dr Nitschke said the women were quite open about their plan at the last meeting of a local Exit International group they attended. He said Ms Parsons and Ms Seeger went to a euthanasia workshop in Melbourne in September, attended by about 300 people.
Ms Seeger was an award-winning and highly respected nurse.
Dr Parsons qualified with a doctorate in medical anthropology and did postdoctoral studies at Harvard University.
The pair volunteered with the Australian Red Cross emergency and disaster program for four years.
In a letter the women wanted distributed to the media, Ms Parsons wrote that after Ms Seeger’s diagnosis her friend said she did not want to be sent to a nursing home or lose her sense of dignity.
“She knows that she cannot wait too long and forfeit her ability to reason, as to ask for assistance would constitute homicide on my part, and neither of us believes that to be acceptable,” Ms Parsons wrote.
“Having said this, we are also aware that under the current (and we believe outdated) law in this land, the police are obliged to charge me with aiding and abetting a suicide and I am not prepared to undergo the harassment and disgrace of a prosecution.”
Ms Parsons wrote that their decision had been a rational one made by two people who had worked with people who have Alzheimer’s and who had a full knowledge of contemporary research in the field.
“We imagine that at the turn of the century, euthanasia/dying with dignity will be regarded as a normal, rational, ethical and legal action, accessible to all who wish to avail themselves of this option, while still protecting the vulnerable and their friends and family.”