SYDNEY, Aug 5, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A 61-year-old cancer patient has become
the first person in over two decades to die under controversial assisted
dying laws in Australia, a charity said.
Kerry Robertson died in July, three months after the mother-of-two ceased
treatment for metastatic breast cancer, the support group Go Gentle Australia
said Sunday.
The state of Victoria passed a law in 2017 to legalise the practice, which
went into effect this June. Other states are now expected to follow suit.
Robertson, who ended her life in the southeastern town of Bendigo, was
diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010 — which then spread into her bones,
lung, brain, and liver.
She decided to stop receiving treatment in March when the side effects of
chemotherapy were no longer manageable and took medication to end her life
after a 26-day approval process, the charity said.
“It was quick, she was ready to go. Her body was failing her and she was
in incredible pain. She’d been in pain for a long time,” her daughter Jacqui
said in a statement.
Euthanasia had previously been legal in Australia’s Northern Territory,
but those laws were overturned in a contentious move by the federal
government in 1997.