And doesn’t use it himself…
On 28th November, former medical doctor Philip Nitschke gave testimony to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying about Assisted Suicide & Euthanasia. [Testimony: not “evidence.”]
Nitschke is highly intelligent and has several degrees. He ‘gave up’ medicine, but has a PhD in Laser Physics so is still Dr. Nitschke. He has pushed assisted suicide for many years and this article shows some of his attitudes and behaviours.
Nitschke exploits despair, and is probably a millionaire from the membership fees from EXIT International alone (more below.)
People should know more about the man who is manipulating social mores worldwide.
Nitschke started with Assisted Suicide for Terminal Illness but now believes in Suicide-on-Demand for every competent adult, for any reason. (We’ve heard that before…)
In his X/Twitter bio (below) he states: “Voluntary Assisted Dying - a fundamental human right for all rational adults” and notes that it is “…not just a privilege for the sick.”
Unlike some of his less-intelligent comrades, Nitschke is adept at staying within the Law.
He is curiously opposed to Capital Punishment yet is in favour of couples completing a suicide pact together — what a romantic!
A curious part of his psyche is that “…he has suffered from hypochondria most of his adult life and futilely hoped with his medical studies to educate himself out of the problem.”
He made headlines when he presented his plan to launch a "death ship" that would have allowed him to circumvent local laws by euthanising people from around the world in international waters! (Wiki)
Nitschke knows that healthy young adults seek information on suicide from EXIT. Since Lucas Taylor, they have restricted access to the Forum / chat-room somewhat — but not other membership benefits.
Death Machines
Nitschke is very proud of the new iteration of his death machine, the Sarco.
The Sarco
The first machine he made — that we know of — was the Deliverance Machine which, after the Australian Rights of the Terminally Ill Act (ROTI Act) 1996, was used by 4 people to kill themselves.
The Deliverance Machine
This was an advance on Jack Kevorkian’s “Thanatron” which “worked by pushing a button to deliver the euthanizing drugs mechanically through an IV.” (Barbiturate sodium thiopental for sedation; potassium chloride to stop the heart and pancuronium bromide, a paralytic agent.)
Nitschke also followed Kevorkian’s Mercitron with his version of the suicide-bag called the “Exit International Euthanasia Device.” The Mercitron was “a rudimentary device consisting of a canister of carbon monoxide attached to a face mask with a tube.” The Euthanasia Device (2008) used “a canister of nitrogen, a plastic suicide bag, and a plastic tube with one end attached to the gas canister and the other fixed inside the bag by a tie held by adhesive tape.”
The claim is that “the presence of carbon dioxide creates panic and a sense of suffocation (the hypercapnic alarm response), and struggling even when unconscious, whereas anoxia in the presence of an inert gas, like nitrogen, helium or argon, does not.” An important fact for Nitschke is that bottled nitrogen is not detectable from the 78% nitrogen in the air normally so will not be discovered during post-mortem — unlike carbon monoxide or helium.
This device failed miserably because ‘the bag’ was not aesthetically pleasing to suicide victims.
Sarco: a trendy gas-chamber for one
Nitschke claims to have invented the Sarco, but Wikipedia reports “…the design of the device was a collaboration between Nitschke and Dutch industrial designer Alexander Bannink.” On the EXIT web-page about the Sarco, Nitschke does not give Bannink any attribution! Nor does he use the term “inventor,” “builder” or “designer” — rather he is “Creator”!
…Anyone think Nitschke calling himself ‘Creator’ is an accident??
Exit International
According to Wikipedia, Exit had 3,500 members in 2011. Conservative calculation of income (using the fees from their web-page opposite) were in the range of $250-300,000.
In 2014 the Lozier Institute estimated that Exit had 75,000 members: calculating conservatively this would be over $5 million in fees PA. I shudder as to what their numbers are now.
I bet Nitschke takes a healthy stipend as founder!
Exit now appears to limit access to the chat room / Forum to those over 50 years of age and ‘of sound mind.’ They require a confirmatory video clip of the applicant holding their ID in view.
Lucas “Vegemite123”
Lucas Taylor (2012 or before)
Perhaps the most disconcerting information I received was the personal communication from Judi Taylor, about her son Lucas.
In 2012, Lucas was a healthy 26-years old Australian working in Germany. He committed suicide “after extensive online communication with other members of Nitschke’s organization. Using Exit’s forum, members advised Taylor about which lethal drugs to take, how much to take, and how to acquire them. Some even invited him on their own international trips to purchase the drugs.”
Later, Judi used Lucas’ username and password to access the Exit International chat-room / Forum and read hundreds of communications. Lucas went by the handle “Vegemite123.”
Below are examples of responses to Vegemite123 from Twoolf and DrTed — who might be Nitschke (according to another forum member in contact with Judi.)
Naturally Judi continued to campaign against Exit and their Assisted Suicide program — to face vile responses from Nitschke and others: “I also had many nuisance phone ringing all night that I had to change my phone number. Oh and the photos of me on Facebook and Twitter.. the bad parent and a reply to someone who asked " who is this woman Philip?" He said.."she's the poster girl for the religious far right" so then I got lots of nasty Facebook messages from the members.including anonymous phone call harrassment.” [Personal communication.]
What a dirty trick to call her a bad mother…
Nitschke went on to claim that Lucas had lied to gain access to the forum (that he was 65-years old) and then that Lucas was giving unwanted suicide advice to others. Later, Nitschke claimed that “Lucas was a rational adult.” (below)
Who thinks that a physically healthy, 26-year old is “rational” when contemplating suicide?
Struck off the medical register
Nitschke had his permit to practice medicine revoked in 2014 due to his involvement in the suicide of Nigel Brayley. (Brayley was a healthy, possibly depressed 45-years old who might have been a multiple murderer.) After complex legal manoeuvres, Nitschke was reinstated and then later chose to burn his medical registration card when giving up medicine in Oz as he was under major restrictions. (Never let good publicity go to waste..!)
Nitschke burning medical registration certificate 2015
The Medical Board of Australia received his petulant criticism. (“Voluntary euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke has hit out at his suspension by the Medical Board of Australia as a "dirty little midnight assassination," saying he had very little to do with a 45-year-old Perth man who took his own life” and “Dr Nitschke called it a "politically motivated deregistration", and said it was "clearly stupid" to claim he was a risk to public safety.” )
Nitschke’s behaviour was so extreme that he alienated Dying with Dignity!! (“Representatives from the Dying with Dignity group say Dr Nitschke does not represent the mainstream medical profession and his work has been counterproductive to their cause…Dr Rodney Syme, the vice president of Dying with Dignity Victoria, says Dr Nitschke is a maverick who operates alone.”)
Evil
In our secular societies we have lost our usual reference points — problem is that there is still evil in the world.
Judi Taylor notes a serious concern: “I seriously think it's something much sicker. At one point he asked Exit members to video their death and send it to him.” Nitschke obviously likes being involved in death — a valid question is, exactly how much?
Here Nitschke is admitting to getting sexually turned-on “after helping people to kill themselves.” This is a Paraphilia. In lay-mans terms, Nitschke is a self-confessed sexual pervert.
A man who gets his jollies by killing people should not advise any government about the care of their citizens.
Kevin Hay
(You can follow Kevin on 𝕏 — formerly Twitter / ‘TwiX’ — @ kevinhay77)