Australian euthanasia activist Dr Philip Nitschke is a busy man in the frantic days before the holiday season begins. He caused outrage this week when he claimed at a seminar on how to kill oneself that elderly couples were buying each other suicide kits as Christmas presents. As he anticipated, his remarks sparked angry responses from Christian and pro-life groups. "A pill to kill yourself and your loved one as a Christmas present is absolutely reprehensible," said Graham Preston, of the Queensland branch of Right to Life Australia.

Then, Dr Nitschke angrily denounced the Federal government for its plan to force internet service providers to filter objectionable material like child pornography and suicide manuals. "What the government is implementing with this mandatory Net censorship is the final act of more than a decade of preventing elderly and seriously ill Australians the right to determine the time and manner of their passing," he declared in a press release. He is now thinking of "seeking political asylum overseas".

And finally he had rare words of praise for a compassionate judge who gave a woman who had throttled her mother to death a two-year wholly suspended sentence because she sought to end her suffering. "The courts are acting compassionately in a situation where the law really gives little leeway or flexibility," Dr Nitschke commented. "I mean, it's an extremely light sentence for the crime of attempted murder, but it shows again that the courts are having to deal with a situation that the politicians simply can't seem to address." ~ Courier Mail (Brisbane), Dec 17