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Philip Haig Nitschke〔(NITSCHKE, Philip Haig - The University of Sydney )〕 (; born 8 August 1947) is an Australian humanist, author and founder and director of the pro-euthanasia group ''Exit International''. He campaigned successfully to have a legal euthanasia law passed in Australia's Northern Territory and assisted four people in ending their lives before the law was overturned by the Government of Australia. Nitschke says he was the first doctor in the world to administer a legal, voluntary, lethal injection.〔 〕 Nitschke states that he and his group are regularly subject to harassment by authorities.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Euthanasia group quizzed over death )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The World Today – Exit members threatened by raids: Nitschke 13/11/2009 )〕 In 2015 Nitschke publicly burned his medical practising certificate after the Medical Board of Australia attempted to muzzle him. ==Early life and career== Born in 1947 in rural South Australia, Nitschke studied physics at the University of Adelaide, gaining a PhD from Flinders University in laser physics in 1972. Rejecting a career in the sciences, he instead travelled to the Northern Territory to take up work with the Aboriginal land rights activist Vincent Lingiari and the Gurindji at Wave Hill. After the hand-back of land by the then Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, Nitschke became a Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife ranger. However, after badly injuring his subtalar joint, with his career as a ranger finished, he began studying for a medical degree. In addition to having long been interested in studying medicine 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 graduated from the University of Sydney Medical School in 1989.〔 Since assisting four terminally ill people in ending their lives, Nitschke has provided advice to others who have ended their lives, mostly notably Nancy Crick, aged 69. On 22 May 2002, Crick, in the presence of over 20 friends and family (but not Nitschke), took a lethal dose of barbiturates, went quickly to sleep and died within 20 minutes. Nitschke had encouraged Crick to enter palliative care, which she did for a number of days before returning home again. She had undergone multiple surgeries to treat bowel cancer and was left with multiple dense and inoperable〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Radio National Breakfast – 27 May 2002 – Nancy Crick's Cancer )〕 bowel adhesions which left her in constant pain and frequent in the toilet with diarrhoea. She was not, however, terminally ill at the time of her death.〔 〕 Nitschke said the scar tissue from previous cancer surgery had caused her suffering. "She didn't actually want to die when she had cancer. She wanted to die after she had cancer treatment," he said.〔 A 2004 documentary film, ''Mademoiselle and the Doctor'', focused on the quest of a retired Perth professor, Lisette Nigot, a healthy 79-year-old, to seek a successful method of voluntary euthanasia. She sought advice from Nitschke. Nigot took an overdose of medication which she had bought in the United States and died, not long before her 80th birthday. In a note to Nitschke, thanking him for his support, she described him as a crusader working for a worthwhile humane cause. "After 80 years of a good life, I have () enough of it", she wrote, "I want to stop it before it gets bad."〔 Nitschke made headlines in New Zealand when he announced plans to accompany eight New Zealanders to Mexico where the drug Nembutal, capable of producing a fatal overdose, can be purchased legally. He also made headlines, even angering some fellow right-to-die advocates, 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.〔 〕 In the 2007 Australian federal election, Nitschke ran against the Australian politician Kevin Andrews in the Victorian seat of Menzies but was unsuccessful.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url = http://results.aec.gov.au/13745/website/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-13745-229.htm )〕 On 2 May 2009 Nitschke was detained for nine hours by British Immigration officials at Heathrow Airport after arriving for a visit to the UK to lecture on voluntary euthanasia and end-of-life choices. Nitschke said it was a matter of free speech and that his detention said something about changes to British society which were "quite troubling".〔 〕 Nitschke was told that he and his wife, author Fiona Stewart, were detained because the workshops may contravene British law.〔 However, although assisting someone to commit suicide in the UK was illegal, the law did not apply to a person lecturing on the concept of euthanasia, and Nitschke was allowed to enter. Dame Joan Bakewell, the British government's "Voice of Older People", said that the current British law on assisted suicide was "a mess" and that Nitschke should have been made more welcome in the UK.〔 〕 In 2009 Nitschke helped to promote ''Dignified Departure'', a 13-hour, pay-television program on doctor-assisted suicide in Hong Kong and mainland China. The program aired in October in China on the Family Health channel, run by the official China National Radio. Organisations opposed to euthanasia, as well as some supporting euthanasia are critical of Nitschke and his methods. On 1 August 2014, after euthanasia advocate Max Bromson, 66,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Voluntary Euthanasia Party's Max Bromson dies in Adelaide motel room after taking Nembutal )〕 who suffered from terminal bone cancer, ended his life with Nembutal in a Glenelg motel room, surrounded by family members, police carried out a three-hour raid on Exit International's Adelaide premises, seizing Nitschke's phones, computers and other items. The items will be kept by police for up to two years, Nitschke was told by police. Nitschke, who said he feels violated by the "heavy-handed and unnecessary" police action, stated that the confiscations will cripple Exit International's activities.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Philip Nitschke」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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