ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, September 28, 1996 TAG: 9609300039
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
SOURCE: Associated Press
BOB DENT committed suicide under Australia's euthanasia law, ending his struggle with cancer.
The cancer-sufferer who became the first person to commit suicide under the world's pioneer voluntary euthanasia law was cremated in a Buddhist ceremony Friday. Debate, meanwhile, continued over the law's morality and legality.
Bob Dent, a 66-year-old carpenter, activated computerized equipment Sunday that pumped lethal drugs into his bloodstream, ending a painful five-year battle against prostate cancer in the presence of his wife and doctor.
Dent converted to the Buddhist faith soon after being diagnosed as terminally ill. Reporters were barred from the service at a temple near his home in the Northern Territory's capital, Darwin, where he ended his life.
Dent's doctor, Philip Nitschke, who helped design the equipment used in the suicide, held a photograph of Dent at the head of the funeral procession.
Dent's son Rod told reporters his father was ``a pioneer who died for the right to euthanasia and the right of personal choice.''
The Northern Territory's legislature became the first in the world to pass a voluntary euthanasia law last year. The law has been challenged since it took effect July 1, and until Sunday, no doctor had used it for fear of being charged with murder should it be overturned.
In a letter dictated the day before he died, Dent criticized clerics and politicians who want to overturn a law that allowed him to end a ``roller coaster of pain.''
Nitschke said he has five other patients wanting to die in the same way as Bent, and many others have asked for help.
Prime Minister John Howard opposes voluntary euthanasia, and his deputy, Tim Fischer, called Dent's death ``a monstrous step'' toward ``a culture of death.''
Anti-euthanasia lawmakers have drafted legislation that would overturn the Northern Territory's law, if passed by the federal Parliament.
But many leaders from Australia's seven other states and territories have expressed support for the Northern Territory's right to govern itself without federal interference.
Clerics and conservative doctors plan to challenge the law in Australia's High Court in November. Some aboriginal leaders have sided with them because they believe euthanasia is a form of witchcraft.
The Vatican denounced euthanasia Friday as ``a substitution of God,'' and strongly criticized Australia's assisted suicide law.
``Australia has opened the tragic era of legal assisted suicides,'' Vatican theologian Gino Concetti wrote in a commentary in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. ``Assisted suicide is a crime legalized by the state, one of the most aberrant in history.''
Nitschke said Dent met the strict conditions of the law, which requires an evaluation of the terminally ill patient by two doctors and a psychiatrist, and mandates a nine-day waiting period before a lethal injection is administered.
LENGTH: Medium: 61 linesby CNB