In an editorial in Exit Australia’s official journal Dr Philip Nitschke has outlined a “tougher and smarter” strategy for promoting the legalisation of euthanasia without creating “a trail of martyrs”. He is attempting to form “a leaderless network that can spread required information throughout a supportive group”. One facet of this new approach is his workshops on do-it-yourself suicide devices.

“The days when kindly doctors travelled around helping the seriously ill to die, while details of these activities were then used to call for legislative change are gone,” he writes. “The model is dated, fragile and dangerous, and to date has achieved little more than the removal of a number of committed activists from the struggle.”

An outpouring of public support for euthanasia in Tasmania in the wake of the Godfrey case (see above) shows that this may have been a shrewd move. According to a report in The Age, Mrs Godfrey was a member of Exit Australia. However, Dr Nitschke’s public association with the case has been minimal.

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