THE Vatican voiced strong disapproval yesterday at the world's first legally assisted suicide, saying no law or human suffering could justify euthanasia.
"One remains stupified and horrified by this shocking case of euthanasia that was requested and granted," said Father Gino Concetti, a Vatican moral theologian close to Pope John Paul II.
He was reacting to the case of an elderly cancer patient who became the first person to take his life under a voluntary euthanasia law in Australia's Northern Territory. Bob Dent died by a computer delivered injection in Darwin on Sunday after persuading doctors his case was hopeless and he knew what he was doing.
"No law of the state can justify euthanasia. This would mean the end of human civilisation based on love and justice," Father Concetti said.
The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Harry Goodhew, said the moral shape of the nation was under threat.
Dr Philip Nitschke of Darwin said he had helped Dent administer the lethal injection. The patient fell asleep immediately and died peacefully shortly thereafter. It was a very difficult time for me, but I was left with the overwhelming feeling that I had done the right thing, done something good by being able to end the suffering of this brave man," the doctor said.
Dent, in an emotional open letter written on the eve of his death, said that he had been living on a "roller coaster of pain and would have killed himself with a gun if he had one."
"Pain can be relieved by the appropriate drugs and ... in Christian teaching it can even be the means for the redemption of the individual and for others," Father Concetti said.
Dent had been suffering from terminal prostate cancer for five years. He and his wife, Judy, had no children. She and Dr Nitschke were present at the death.
Dent had asked to die under the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act, which the Northern Territory parliament passed last year but which came into force only in July. The first law of its kind anywhere, it has bitterly divided Australians. The Northern Territory, a place the size of Europe, contains less than 1 per cent of Australia's population. When it was finally passed the law contained so many amendments that voluntary euthanasia supporters complained it would become almost impossible to implement.
Two doctors and a psychiatrist must approve a terminally ill patient's request to die and verify that it does not arise from clinical depression. As no Darwin psychiatrist would co operate, a Sydney psychiatrist flew to Darwin and certified that Dent was not suffering from depression.
Dent had ultimate control by pressing a computer button commanding the machine to perform.
The Northern Territory law is to come before the High Court in November, when a coalition of the Australian Medical Association, Aborigines and clerics will argue that it violates an implied right to life under Australia's constitution. Another challenge is under way in the federal parliament in Canberra, where a backbench MP from the ruling Liberal Party has introduced a bill to override the Northern Territory act.