SYDNEY, April 29, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) — A longtime advocate of assisted suicide has broken his silence about helping a patient die nearly a decade ago, in the hopes of changing Australia's laws on the subject.
Dr. Rodney Syme admitted publicly that he gave deadly drugs to cancer patient Steve Guest in 2005.
Syme said he gave the drug Nembutal to Mr. Guest, who used them to commit suicide. According to Euthanasia Prevention Coalition International Chair and Executive Director Alex Schadenberg, Syme's actions should lead to him being prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
“He intentionally gave a veterinary drug used to euthanize animals to a human being,” Schadenberg told LifeSiteNews. “How did he get it, since it's illegal in Australia unless you're a veterinarian?”
According to Syme, his admission “puts the ball back in the authorities' court.” He hopes to challenge the national ban on the practice through the judicial and Parliamentary systems.
“I think he should be prosecuted by the Australian authorities,” Schadenberg said, even though Syme is “actually hoping to challenge the nation's law, so he'll be acquitted.”
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Schadenberg said Syme should not be acquitted, “since he assisted in the suicide of someone using an illegal substance.”
Schadenberg is uncertain as to whether prosecution of Syme will ultimately be successful. “The law does have a problem,” he told LifeSiteNews. “It's hard to prove that he did what he says he did, because it was nine years ago.”