Up to 20 people may have been killed in illegal euthanasia ring

Three individuals in Queensland, Australia, have been arrested for allegedly running an illegal euthanasia ring that may have killed over 20 people.

Key Takeaways:

• Brett Daniel Taylor, 53, Ian Taylor, 80, and Elaine Arch-Rowe, 81, have all been arrested and accused of trafficking euthanasia drugs to people across Queensland.

• The three ran a business that allegedly sold lethal drugs used in veterinary euthanasia to suicidal people.

• Assisted suicide is legal in every Australian state, including Queensland.

The Details:

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Brett Daniel Taylor was the main point of contact for the euthanasia ring. He was the director for a charity, Cetacean Compassion Australia Ltd, a non-profit purported to euthanize beached whales; however, authorities now say this was just a front.

Taylor is not a veterinarian, and the drugs were used to kill people.

In addition to his fake charity, Taylor also allegedly posed as a lawyer, and through his other business, End of Life Services, he prepared wills and legal documents. Secretly, he was selling suicide kits. His father, Ian Taylor, and Elaine Arch-Rowe, a long-time supporter of Exit International founder Philip Nitschke, also participated in the scheme.

Culture of death: Nations allowing doctor-assisted suicide and euthanasia

"The alleged conduct involves deliberately targeting vulnerable people and exploiting them in their most desperate moments," Detective Inspector Mark Mooney said. "We will allege he hasn’t acted compassionately at all. This is a business transaction for him … just for pure money."

Taylor allegedly sold pentobarbitone, a veterinary drug that was found in the system of a 43-year-old man discovered dead in his home. “He had suffered from medical conditions for a long period of time, but his medical conditions did not meet the voluntary assisted dying laws of Queensland,” Mooney said.

When police began investigating, they were led to Taylor.

Pentobarbitone, or pentobarbital sodium, is primarily used for animal euthanasia, but it is occasionally used in the assisted suicides of humans, too.

Why It Matters:

Reports have revealed that most people who requested assisted suicide are afraid of losing their autonomy and of not being able to enjoy life as they did before. They also fear becoming a burden on their loved ones.

But assisted death is rarely the peaceful death people are promised. Assisted suicide and euthanasia are committed using the same drugs previously used in lethal injection executions, and the process is far more grisly than many realize.

“The death penalty is not the same as assisted dying, of course. Executions are meant to be punishment; euthanasia is about relief from suffering,” Dr. Joel Zivot, an associate professor of anesthesiology and surgery at the Emory School of Medicine, said in a previous op-ed. “Yet for both euthanasia and executions, paralytic drugs are used. These drugs, given in high enough doses, mean that a patient cannot move a muscle, cannot express any outward or visible sign of pain. But that doesn’t mean that he or she is free from suffering.”

Pentobarbital causes pulmonary edema, in which the lungs fill with fluid; this means victims essentially drown in their own secretions. Yet because they are also given a paralytic, it’s impossible to tell that patients are suffering.

Such deaths are also not necessarily quick. A study in the medical journal "Anaesthesia" found that long, painful deaths from assisted suicide and euthanasia are alarmingly common, with a third of patients taking 30 hours to die. Four percent took a shocking seven days to die. Experiments with assisted suicide and euthanasia also confirmed victims' suffering; one cocktail was said to be “burning patients’ mouths and throats, causing some to scream in pain.”

The Bottom Line:

Assisted suicide practitioners prey on those who are vulnerable, through legal and illegal channels.