Australia’s Philip Nitschke is Jack Kevorkian, squared, but without our late ghoul’s willingness to put his own freedom on the line for his beliefs.

How noxious is Nitschke? Just read Kathryn Jean Lopez’s interview with him from more than ten years ago, in which he said that suicide pills should be sold in supermarkets and available to “troubled teens.”

Now, he is set to open an Internet suicide clinic. From the International Business News story:

With Independent MP Bob Such’s Ending Life with Dignity bill creating such a huge discussion in parliament, it’s only timely that Australia’s first euthanasia clinic should also be discussed. Dr Philip Nitschke, voluntary euthanasia campaigner and Exit International director, confirmed that by November 24 the clinic and laboratory will be open.

However, he is quick to clarify that the clinic will not be a place for people to die. It will offer virtual internet consultations, productive and concrete advice about euthanasia, information, and distribute nitrogen kits. There will of course be some amount of education on the topic to be supplied by the facility.

“Testing drugs to give people accurate information about what will happen if they are consumed is an important medical service and entirely consistent with the principals of harm minimization,” Dr Nitschke added.

I have always been amazed at how obsessed with “technique” and death “testing” these people are. And now are death methods tested? On animals? On people? Funny, the media seems very uncurious about that.

What can we learn here? Euthanasia/assisted suicide are not medical. Kevorkian used carbon monoxide. Hemlock Society founder Derek Humphry and Final Exit Network promote helium as a killer. Nitschke promotes nitrogen.

Should these poisonous gases be covered by health insurance or available by prescription? Should these suicide fanatics be arrested for practicing medicine without a license? Please.

One lonely, death-obsessed, nihilistic nut, you say? Wrong. He epitomizes the more candid wing of the euthanasia movement. Others are just as radical — at least implicitly — just more well tailored and politic in their messaging. Indeed, Nitschke isn’t scorned by his co-believers, but embraced — often a star speaker at international euthanasia conferences around the world.

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Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC
Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC