If you were knocking on death’s door and the door wasn’t opening quickly enough, would you want to be able to give it a shove yourself?

 

To have agency over your death is a tricky subject, but that hasn’t stopped Philip Nitschke from diving into it head first.

 

To understand why Nitschke felt compelled to go down such an onerous path, let’s first give you a sense of his personality as a young chap.

 

When he was 18, someone stole Nitschke's car radio. The police weren’t too concerned about it so Nitschke waited in the boot of his car with a 0.22 calibre rifle for the thief to come back for the car speakers.

 

That may seem slightly insane to a regular human being, but Nitschke needed to serve some justice. He figured that he could solve his own problems.

 

As a young med school graduate, feeling compelled to help people solve their own problems too, Nitschke was intrigued by the idea of euthanasia for those that wanted to end their lives peacefully and on their own terms.

 

And in 1996, in the Northern Territory, Nitschke became the first doctor in the world to administer a legal, lethal, voluntary injection.

 

As a result, Nitschke became an outspoken advocate and crusader for euthanasia. As you can imagine, it hasn’t been an easy road, but it certainly hasn’t been boring.

 

Nitschke invented death machines, originated a euthanasia flash mob and created a Comedy Festival show entitled ‘Dicing with Dr Death’. The reviews were actually pretty good!

 

And yes, you did read that right. Death machines are a real thing. Dying in a peaceful, reliable and dignified manner is surprisingly difficult. Nitschke’s newest death machine iteration (which currently only exists in VR form) is called Sarco (named after sarcophagus) and looks like it belongs in a Tesla display centre. 

 

Why has Nitschke fought so hard for our right to die? And what is the state of voluntary assisted dying  (and his medical licence) now? Also - what happened to that car radio thief? 

 

Jump on into this episode and find out.

 

Previous episodes mentioned:

Ep 275 - Chinese Restaurant Syndrome or Why We Panicked About MSG

Ep 270 - Non Fungible Tulips!

Ep 267 - What Do We Do With The Immortal Quadrillionaires?

Ep 153 - Safety Issues at the Los Alamos Lab!

 

Sources:

• https://www.economist.com/1843/2019/12/12/a-design-for-death-meeting-the-bad-boy-of-the-euthanasia-movement
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_device
• https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-05/ama-speaks-out-over-nitschke-claims/4670282
• https://www.exitinternational.net/about-exit/history/
• https://www.exitinternational.net/sarco/
• Australian Man First in World To Die With Legal Euthanasia 1996
  https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/26/world/australian-man-first-in-world-to-die-with-legal-euthanasia.html
• https://maxdogbrewing.com
• https://www.9news.com.au/national/dr-death-to-fight-nitrogen-complaint/6765eccc-5b3f-45b5-9fda-15cd70940740
• https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/15/nitschke-suicide-machine-amsterdam-euthanasia-funeral-fair
• https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sarco-death-philip-nitschke_n_5abbb574e4b03e2a5c7853ca
• https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-assisted-suicide-machine-727874
• https://www.smh.com.au/national/healthy-woman-thanks-dr-nitschke-then-kills-herself-20021126-gdfvde.html
• https://www.smh.com.au/national/euthanasia-campaigner-philip-nitschke-sets-medical-licence-alight-20151127-gl9wpr.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Nitschke

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