THE MACHINE itself is nothing much to look at. It’s just a standard laptop
computer connected to some common-or-garden syringe-driving equipment. What is
truly unsettling is the far from prosaic use to which it has been put. Just by
hooking themselves up to it and tapping in a few very basic commands, four
terminally ill patients have managed to end their own lives under the watchful
eyes of their doctors.
It was developed by an Australian doctor, Philip Nitschke. In the mid-1990s,
the government of the Northern Territory passed a law permitting voluntary
euthanasia under strictly defined conditions. This law…
