as 3:45 in the morning when the vote was finally taken. After six months of arguing and final 16 hours of hot parliamentary de
bates, Australia’s Northern Territory be
came the first legal authority in the worl
d to allow doctors to take the lives of incurably ill patients who wish to die. The measure passed by the convincing vote of 15 to 10. Almost immediately word flashed on the Internet and was picked up, half a world away, by John Hofsess, executive di