Australian Television Stations Give the All Clear to Euthanasia
March 16, 1999 - 0:0
SYDNEY Voluntary euthanasia campaigners won their fight Monday to persuade Australian commercial television stations to screen an advertisement showing a cancer patient appealing for the right to die. It features mother-of-four June Burns, 59, threatening to commit suicide if nobody helped her to die because she is suffering from incurable bladder cancer and cannot control the pain even with morphine and other drugs.
I don't want to have to kill myself, but if nobody can help me, I'm going to have to, she pleads on the commercial. If I was a dog by now the Royal Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals would be on to my husband for cruelty and would have me put down straight away. I think human beings are treated worse than animals.
The commercial, due to be screened by the Channel Nine network on Wednesday, faced a ban by the Federation of Commercial Television Stations (FACTS) following an outcry by opponents of euthanasia including the Catholic Church. But facts general manager Tony Branigan said after studying the commercial he was satisfied it did not imply a threat by June Burns to breach the law and did not infringe the industry's code of practice.
It is clearly a call to reform the law rather than a clear statement of intention to do anything herself or have others do anything that might breach state or federal law, he said. He said the advertisement had a strong political message and in the last days of a New South Wales state election would require an authorization tag. Burns, a member of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society since 1990 after her father died from the same cancer she now has, agreed to have the commercial filmed when asked by the society.
The coalition of organizations for voluntary euthanasia said it had supported the commercial being produced because it wanted debate renewed with a view to a referendum possibly in four years' time. We are hoping that people will decide these very personal issues for themselves, coalition spokesman Doctor Robert Marr said. Politicians seem to lack courage to stand up to the vocal minorities in the church groups and elsewhere.
Australia has been at the forefront of the campaign to legalize euthanasia since 1997 when a Darwin man became the world's first to die under legally sanctioned euthanasia following the introduction of legislation by the Northern Territory legislature. Under the law, two doctors had to confirm a patient was terminally ill and suffering unbearable pain before life could be ended. A psychiatrist had to confirm the patient was not suffering a treatable clinical depression.
Three others took advantage of the law before it was overridden by federal legislation in a conscience vote by Australia's upper house Senate in March last year following strong condemnation by opponents including church leaders and aborigines. (AFP)
I don't want to have to kill myself, but if nobody can help me, I'm going to have to, she pleads on the commercial. If I was a dog by now the Royal Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals would be on to my husband for cruelty and would have me put down straight away. I think human beings are treated worse than animals.
The commercial, due to be screened by the Channel Nine network on Wednesday, faced a ban by the Federation of Commercial Television Stations (FACTS) following an outcry by opponents of euthanasia including the Catholic Church. But facts general manager Tony Branigan said after studying the commercial he was satisfied it did not imply a threat by June Burns to breach the law and did not infringe the industry's code of practice.
It is clearly a call to reform the law rather than a clear statement of intention to do anything herself or have others do anything that might breach state or federal law, he said. He said the advertisement had a strong political message and in the last days of a New South Wales state election would require an authorization tag. Burns, a member of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society since 1990 after her father died from the same cancer she now has, agreed to have the commercial filmed when asked by the society.
The coalition of organizations for voluntary euthanasia said it had supported the commercial being produced because it wanted debate renewed with a view to a referendum possibly in four years' time. We are hoping that people will decide these very personal issues for themselves, coalition spokesman Doctor Robert Marr said. Politicians seem to lack courage to stand up to the vocal minorities in the church groups and elsewhere.
Australia has been at the forefront of the campaign to legalize euthanasia since 1997 when a Darwin man became the world's first to die under legally sanctioned euthanasia following the introduction of legislation by the Northern Territory legislature. Under the law, two doctors had to confirm a patient was terminally ill and suffering unbearable pain before life could be ended. A psychiatrist had to confirm the patient was not suffering a treatable clinical depression.
Three others took advantage of the law before it was overridden by federal legislation in a conscience vote by Australia's upper house Senate in March last year following strong condemnation by opponents including church leaders and aborigines. (AFP)