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Australia's "Bland case" has been duly lost (Canberra Times, 30 May 03), but thanks to the Right to Life Association of Australia with nationwide publicity for their side of the argument. RTLA won the right to contest the withdrawal of tube feeding from a 68 year-old woman with Pick's disease, in the Victoria Supreme Court, and was represented by Jeannette Morrish QC, a criminal lawyer whose mother had survived a Nazi slave labour camp; but they were not allowed to call evidence or cross-examine witnesses. Justice Stuart Morris ruled that food and fluid given though a tube were medical treatment, not palliative care, thus condemning the patient to death. RTLA president Margaret Tighe said it was "not an act of love to kill somebody by dehydration and starvation...." "I do feel fearful for the lives of many people who will be considered expendable." |