A 61-year-old Australian woman with cancer became the first in July to use a controversial law on assisted suicide in the state of Victoria (southeast), a militant group for euthanasia said. volunteer, Go Gentle Australia.
Kerry Robertson, a mother of two, died in July in Bendigo, Victoria, three months after stopping due to heavy side effects her treatment for breast cancer that had spread, said Sunday. group. Her cancer was diagnosed in 2010. The lethal product was administered after the 26-day statutory approval process. "It was fast, she was ready to leave," said her daughter Jacqui in a statement. "Her body was failing and she was in terrible pain, she had been suffering for a long time."
A law for terminally ill patients
The state of Victoria, the second most populous in the country, passed a law in 2017, which came into force last June, allowing end-of-life patients to shorten their lives. This is a first in the country and other states could follow suit. Assisted suicide is reserved for terminally ill patients over the age of 18 living in the state of Victoria with less than six months to live, or less than one year for people with multiple sclerosis or conditions neuromotor. The law provides safeguards including an independent review committee and the intervention of a medical examiner to control the circumstances of the deaths.
In 1996, a law authorizing euthanasia entered into force in the Northern Territory, making Australia the first country in the world to legalize euthanasia, but was repealed the following year at the federal level. When it was legal, Philip Nitschke, an Australian activist on the right to euthanasia, became the first doctor in the world to administer a lethal, legal and voluntary injection to end a life. He had helped four people die.