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Voluntary euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke has angrily denied reports he helped a healthy Wellington woman to end her life.
The 68-year-old woman sought advice from Dr Nitschke before a 2005 trip to Mexico on which she bought the class C drug phenobarbitone (nembutal). She took her own life 11 months after her return home.
In an editorial yesterday the Sunday Star Times said Dr Nitschke had facilitated the woman's death, and that it was a worrying development.
Dr Nitschke, in New Zealand to hold four euthanasia seminars, said reports that the woman had been depressed would have made her turn in her grave. He also supplied the Herald with a letter the woman wrote to him after her return from Mexico which described her new-found peace of mind after the trip.
"I would have thought that it was a situation where her association with us actually improved her feeling of well-being," Dr Nitschke said.
The woman was one of the first people to join Nitschke's Exit International group, and had been a life member. Her death had not been the act of an impetuous person, Dr Nitschke said.
"It's a far cry between giving people access to accurate information and what most people would actually consider to be the meaning of assisting," Dr Nitschke said.
However, euthanasia opponents were horrified by details of the woman's death. Right To Life spokesman Ken Orr said Dr Nitschke had encouraged and assisted the woman to commit suicide because he had given her instructions on how to go to Mexico to purchase nembutal.
Rather than give the woman advice on how to end her life, Dr Nitschke should have advised her to seek medical help and counselling, Mr Orr said.
Last week Dr Nitschke was detained at Auckland Airport for a brief time after he tried to bring into the country copies of a handbook advising people how to take their own lives.
