No, because it was an important thing to do. She was a clear woman. As it turned out, going without drinking for a week was not enough. Hall, so convinced about the rightness of what she was doing that she allowed footage of herself to appear posthumously this week on the ABC-TV's 7.30 Report, was also taking small doses of pain reliever prescribed by the palliative care team at the hospital she attended. Apparently frustrated by how long it was taking to die, she decided to up the dosage of morphine.
Suicide is legal in Australia, but assisting suicide is a crime carrying severe penalties.
Almost four years ago a private member's bill, sponsored by the Victorian Liberal Kevin Andrews, was passed in the Federal Parliament to override the NT euthanasia law. Even so, advocates like Nitschke, and Melbourne urologist Dr Rodney Syme, continue to advise people who want to terminate their life. By doing so, they acknowledge they are walking the proverbial legal tightrope. Hall's death is merely one of a number of recent cases where the lines seem to be blurring. In Western Australia, urologist Daryl Stephens is facing a charge of wilful murder or aiding a suicide relating to the death in hospital of a terminally ill kidney cancer patient, Freda Hayes, 48.