Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995 11. The effect of the law was nullified in 1997 by the federal Parliament of Australia which passed the "Euthanasia Laws Act 1997". The Act continues on the Territory's statute books. Dr Philip Nitschke founded Exit International in response to the overturning of the Act. While voluntary euthanasia had previously been condoned officially in the Netherlands and the US state of Oregon, the act was the first time that a legislative assembly passed a law explicitly legalising euthanasia. The Act allowed a terminally ill patient to end their life with medical assistance, either by the direct involvement of a physician
Mentally ill people in United States jails and prisons sane and responsible for his actions. Jenkins the got off death row and was put into a mental institution. Mentally ill people in United States jails and prisons Mentally ill people are overrepresented in United States jail and prison populations relative to the general population. There are three times more seriously mentally ill persons in jails and prisons than in hospitals in the United States. The exact cause of this overrepresentation is disputed by scholars; proposed causes include the deinstitutionalization of mentally ill individuals in the mid-twentieth century; inadequate community mental health treatment resources; and the criminalization of mental illness