Nancy Crick was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n woman who took her own life by drinking a solution of Nembutal, while surrounded by 21 voluntary euthanasia supporters and family. Nancy was supported in her decision by euthanasia

Euthanasia

Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....

 activist Dr. Philip Nitschke

Philip Nitschke

Dr. Philip Nitschke is an Australian medical doctor, humanist, author and founder and director of the pro-euthanasia group Exit International. He campaigned successfully to have a legal euthanasia law passed in Australia's Northern Territory and assisted four people in ending their lives before...

. Nancy's death became highly politicised after her autopsy results were leaked to the media. This was because the autopsy showed that at that the time of her death, Nancy was 'cancer free' but had an inoperable bowel condition that may have been the cause of her suicide-inducing pain.

Critics of her actions seized on this fact, equating 'cancer free' with being 'well'. This was not the case for Nancy. After her cancer surgeries, Nancy found herself with extensive adhesions from the surgery. Adhesions are well known for making a patient's quality of life worse after surgery than before. Critics argue that Nancy Crick took her own life even though, technically, she had no sign of the bowel cancer. The autopsy makes reference to extremely densely bound adhesions of her large and small bowel. Dr Nitschke said the scar tissue from previous cancer surgery had caused her suffering. "She didn't actually want to die when she had cancer. She wanted to die after she had cancer treatment," he said.

In an interview with 'The Australian' newspaper two months before her death, Nancy was quoted saying: "I don't know what I've got and they don't know what I've got, but whatever it is, it's bloody well there. And they can't find it with their operations and in the end it comes down to quality of life and I've got none of that now." Nancy Crick took her own life after she decided that her quality of life post 'successful' cancer surgery was unacceptable to her. She said she was in "too much pain".

According to her Internet diary at nancycrick.com (now defunct), Nancy spent most of her time on the toilet. Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

 newspaper The Age

The Age

The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...

 commented: "What she says she does in there is neither dignified nor pleasant. For these reasons, we can understand why she's had enough".

Her death

Nancy died after drinking a 100ml solution of the drug, Nembutal. She was surrounded by twenty-one family and friends. One of the reasons why so many people were present at her death was to frustrate any prosecutor who might be tempted to lay charges against the observers for assisting with her suicide. Nancy felt strongly that she did not want to die alone. She resented the legal risk that her children might face should they have sat with her when she died. To protect them, Nancy invited supporters from the voluntary euthanasia group, Exit International, to be with her.

The support network "Nancy's Friends" was established by Exit International in 2005 in her memory. Nancy's Friends is a network of trained volunteers who provide support and friendship to people considering their end of life decisions.

Nancy is buried alongside her husband, James, in the Pimpama Uniting church cemetery at the Gold Coast

Gold Coast, Queensland

Gold Coast is a coastal city of Australia located in South East Queensland, 94km south of the state capital Brisbane. With a population approximately 540,000 in 2010, it is the second most populous city in the state, the sixth most populous city in the country, and also the most populous...

.

The story of her death was covered extensively in Killing Me Softly: Voluntary Euthanasia and the Road to the Peaceful Pill by P. Nitschke & F Stewart, Penguin, Sydney, 2005).

External links

• Transcript of Nancy Crick video at the Sydney Morning Herald