An elderly woman with terminal cancer, denied euthanasia under Australian law, has decided to chronicle the rest of her life on the Internet and vowed not to live through another Australian winter.
"I want to die at the time and place of my choosing, with my loved ones around me, but the law of Australia does not allow me to do this," writes Ms Nancy Crick (70) on her website.
"The law of this land condemns me to end my life alone, so that my friends and family are not incriminated by my choice to die by my own hand," she said.
Ms Crick, who began her diary on February 6th, plans to chronicle the rest of her life in diary entries and photographs on her website, with the website calendar ending in March and the words "To be continued . . . ?"
Crick said she was diagnosed with bowel cancer three years ago but is now so sick she is a virtual prisoner in her home at Burleigh Waters in Queensland.
In 1996, Australia's outback Northern Territory introduced the world's first voluntary euthanasia laws. Four people used the laws to die by lethal injection administered via a computer before the national government overturned the legislation in 1997.
Euthanasia is now illegal across Australia.