AN Australian court yesterday upheld the world's first euthanasia law, overriding objections from aborigines who call it witchcraft and Catholic church groups who call it a sin.
The challenge in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory was one of several attempts to scuttle the local state law, which lets doctors - under certain conditions - administer lethal doses of drugs to the terminally ill.
But there is strong opposition at the national level and the law seems destined to be struck down one way or another.
A bill that would override the law is pending in parliament, and opponents of the law vowed to appeal against yesterday's decision to the High Court of Australia on constitutional grounds.
Euthanasia became legal in the Northern Territory on July 1st, more than a year after the territory's legislature passed the bill. But doctors have refused to use the law until the legal challenge has run its course, fearing they could be charged with murder if the law is struck down.
Two terminally ill patients who travelled to Darwin, the state capital, for euthanasia have been unable to end their lives. This is because they could not find two doctors and a psychiatrist to evaluate them, as required by the law. The law also requires a nine day waiting period. No one is known to have been able to meet the strict requirements of the law and use it to die.
The territorial court challenge was filed by plaintiffs backed by the Australian Medical Association and aboriginal religious groups. The aboriginal groups regard inducing death as a form of witchcraft.
Social workers also say some aborigines might be afraid to go to clinics and hospitals for routine health care and inoculations if they knew white doctors had the ability to kill by injection.
Church groups around the world have denounced the law. An Italian theologian wrote in the Vatican's official newspaper this month that the Northern Territory law opens a "new monstrous chapter" in history.
In the court challenge, the plaintiffs argued that the law was invalid because the state government did not have the power to make life and death decisions.
The court split two to one, ruling that the territory was within its rights.
But the cabinet of the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, opposes the law, as does the Labour opposition leadership, of the Northern Territory law looks doomed when it gets to Canberra.
Meanwhile, opponents are trying to tie up the law in the courts, as happened with a similar initiative in the United States.
Voluntary euthanasia legislation in Oregon was approved by a voter referendum in 1995, but a federal court blocked it from taking effect. Similar measures were defeated in Washington in 1991 and California in 1992.
Holland has the most permissive euthanasia laws in the world.