THESE shocking pictures reveal the moment a man kills himself at a suicide clinic in Switzerland. The chilling scenes show Craig Ewert, 59, who had motor neurone disease, setting a timer to switch off his ventilator before drinking lethal sedatives.
And it will all be broadcast on British TV tomorrow night. Mr Ewert’s assisted suicide at the Swiss Dignitas clinic, was filmed for a documentary called Right To Die – The Suicide Tourist, to be shown on Sky Real Lives channel on Wednesday night. It will be the first time an assisted suicide has been shown on British TV and will be sure to spark debate over the legality of the sensitive subject – as well as the controversial decision to screen it.
The retired university professor and dad-of-two decided to end his life as his illness was crippling his body. Mr Ewert said: ‘I am tired of the disease but I am not tired of living. I still enjoy life enough that I would like to continue but the thing is that I really cannot.
‘If I opt for life then that is choosing to be tortured rather than end this journey and start the next one. I cannot take the risk. ‘Let’s face it, when you’re completely paralysed and cannot talk how do you let somebody know you are suffering? This could be a complete and utter hell. ‘You can watch only so much of yourself drain away before you look at what is left and say “This is an empty shell.” ‘Once I become completely paralysed then I am nothing more than a living tomb that takes in nutrients through a tube in the stomach – it’s painful.’
Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland and Mr Ewert passed away peacefully holding his wife, Mary’s hand.
While I totally respect his choice, I can’t imagine wanting to watch it on TV.
There’s no doubt this would be difficult to watch but no more so than what he and his family witnessed every day since he got sick. I think that’s the point. There is no reason euthanasia shouldn’t be available when medicine can offer no other means to relieve suffering. If one’s religious or moral convictions prevent it that’s fine as long as the option is available for those who need it.
I wonder what prevents all US executions from being as peaceful?
RBG
# 2 RBG said, “I wonder what prevents all US executions from being as peaceful?”
I think Utah’s firing squad method is pretty peaceful. Bang, your dead.
At least Brits get to watch a suicide. We get “American Idol”.
It is truly shocking indeed that we are not all allowed to die with such dignity.
Anyone who has ever had to put their pet to sleep, especially if they had to explain it to their children as “putting the pet out of his/her misery” or as “ending his/her suffering” or other reasonable explanation knows that we treat our pets better than we treat our parents and grandparents in most countries in the world, especially the U.S.
It is truly shocking that we must look to Switzerland for such images of peace and dignity at the end of one’s life.
For those who put a pet to sleep but would not do the same for a parent or grandparent, why did you murder your pet?
My mother has asked to be taken to Switzerland when her time is right. She has Parkinson’s disease.
I did it for my cat. I will do it for her.
#3 this is about compassion and you are out of order, #2 raises a very good point.
This assisted suicide is legal in Oregon, and I’m glad I live in Northern California. After having surgeons do the slice and dice on you from lung cancer and then two more surgeries for the tremendous infections that occurred after the first surgery, I have given this a little bit of thought. My wife has been through colon cancer surgery and we agree that quality of life is a very important consideration, once quality of life starts approaching zero there should be a way out for the patient. This idea that we have to cling to life tooth and nail, when we know it is hopeless, is ridiculous religious nonsense.
There are many people in America who understand the importance of legal, doctor assisted, suicide. I’m surprised the baby boomers haven’t already granted this boon to themselves since they have the numbers to pack the ballot box. But the boomers have never been good at organizing, or marijuana would be legal.
As for watching somebody do it, no thank you. My grandson died in my arms from liver cancer when he was 3 1/2 years old, he’s not the only person I’ve been with at the moment of death, and it’s never been fun.
# 6 Micromike said, “#3 this is about compassion and you are out of order,”
ROFL
I think this is a good thing. The main element holding humanity back from progression is close-mindedness. Many peopleare so pro-life that they forget that death isnt a bad evil thing, its a natural part of living. By televising someone willfully dying, maybe it will show people that death can be natural and even peaceful, and maybe open a few epople’s minds about issues like this
I would watch it, and hope they show this in my country. People in our society live in denial of death, and shove anyone too old or too sick into hospitals and never go visit, leaving them to die alone. Nobody should have to die alone.
Guess I can’t mock the “everything’s on video in Britain” posts anymore.
Also, they got rid of the firing squad here a few years ago.
# 4 OvenMaster said,
At least Brits get to watch a suicide. We get “American Idol”.
There’s a difference?
J/P=?
# 10 James Hill said, “Also, they got rid of the firing squad here a few years ago.”
Damn. Society is going downhill faster than I thought.
If I were Japanese and he were a blond, blue-eyed swedish girl I’d be masturbating to her last gasps of breath.
#7 – Paddy-RAMBO
>>“#3 this is about compassion and you are out
>>of order,”
>>
>>ROFL
He should have just cut through the euphemistic bullshit, and saidi “Paddy-RAMBO, you’re an asshole”.
He’d get scant argument with a statement like that.
Now get back to your remote-controlled radio cars, won’t you?
#14 – Mister Mustard,
They don’t let him play with the radio controlled cars anymore. He crashed them too many times.
More importantly though, stop handing out the Purina(tm) Troll Food.
Our Editor asks: “While I totally respect his choice, I can’t imagine wanting to watch it on TV.” /// and the answer was referenced above===because such activity is illegal in most of America/UK and where it is legal, it is too restrictive.
How to bring social change? Sure there are written magazine pieces, you tube and such but TV reaches the most people most directly. What is really needed is a MOVIE STAR to do this.
Same with drugs and prostitution===lets get all the needed changes to society on TV, and yes American Idol too.
So now lets see: a contest on American Idol of Movie Stars electing drugs/prostitution/suicide to be broadcast on TV. It would be a start.
nothing new here. On November 22, 1998, 60 Minutes broadcasted a tape made by Dr.Kvorkian on national television.
#16. OK, Paris Hilton…I would watch. I can think of others.
Television, and the media in general, is getting more and more crass every day. Surely the argument for the right to die with dignity does not need to be illustrated with an actual assisted death.
Id really like to see some of the opponents of assisted suicide be put in the same position of these terminally injured and desperately unhappy people and see if they maintain their selfish opinions.
#19–Seeing is believing===YES, this choice is available for you no matter what your family, priest, or other busy body has to say. Make up your own mind.
Whats wonderful about EVERYTHING being on TV (or web I guess the way its going) is you don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to. Paraphrasing Lincoln==”TV is about as crass as you wish it to be.”
McCullough==Paris and many other Female Movie Stars have gotten their prostitution up as far as you tube. Can’t say tv shows go as far as prostitution, unless one wants to define “work” of any kind as such, or perhaps trading on their “looks” as prostitution of a sort? That of course fills prime time with their tit-til-altion. Like the tits, don’t like the shows.
I think I will watch the game instead.
hey I watched my father die in the hospital about two years ago, it wasn’t fun and not entertainment. But watching a complete stranger die, on TV, sounds pointless. People die everyday, who cares?
#11: None whatsoever! 😀
#14, Mustard,
He should have just cut through the euphemistic bullshit, and said “Paddy-RAMBO, you’re an asshole”.
An asshole is useful. Just ask any good piece of crap.
*
While not a religious believer, most of us do hold the death of someone as a tragic thing. Even someone who has lived a long and good life. Mocking that is usually in poor taste although there are some Radio Shack stock boys that might not matter.
My wife experiences excrutiating pain due to a rare auto-immune malfunction that attacks her nerves. No matter how much I want her pain to stop, I would never participate in snuffing out her life due to it. Her life is far more valuable than the inconvenience of pain. She would never end her life over it, either. She understands that suicide is an extremely selfish act that takes no regard for the lack of value you demonstrate for innocent human life to those you leave behind.
This is the same old liberal confusion talking: justifying immoral principles with jabber about “compassion.” This is like confusing love with sex, using emotions to override intellectual principles. This is how Clinton got us into the economic crap we have now, by his “sub-prime lending” forced on our credit industries in the name of “compassion for low-income folks” against the soundness of time-tested financial principles.
Doing the right thing does not always feel, appear, nor sound warm and fuzzy. It “kills” me to see my wife in pain. But I think I speak for her when I say that our laws and our standard of right and wrong and our definition of innocent human life must not be dictated by convenience like it has over the past 40 years.
Let’s return to the Clinton-engineered legacy of “sub-prime lending” for further illustration. Clinton rejected generations of sound fiscal lending policy because he genuinely believed that everyone has the right to own a home.
So who is paying the price for Clinton’s sincere, but mis-guided “compassion?” We all are. The entire world, that is. How much pain is there now in the housing market compared to before Clinton’s “compassion” orchestrated this debacle?
We should (but will not, as we just elected President one of biggest defenders of Clinton’s fiscal policies) learn that we never lower our nation’s fiscal standards to accommodate the few at the expense of the many. It does not matter how good it feels or sounds in the moment (sex is not love). How much more critically important is our standard we uphold concerning innocent human life?
Do we, as a society, lower our standards of protection and value for life to accommodate the few at the expense of the many? As abortion showed us (but we never learn from it), the value, or lack thereof, you place (or fail to) on one category of innocent human life directly impacts ALL categories of human life.
I cud not agree more on what athrillofhope said.HE is the kind of person who really entitled to voice opinion regarding this.I was having the same,..autoimmune disorder with brain,lung,kidney,heart, colon,blood involvement.IMAGINE THIS.And last year i was in ICU twice and the doctors seems cant find the other way to save me.They send me home.Yes,..i do gave up too.It is not that the disease alone that is so excruiting ly painful but the treatment that i had underwent.Chemo, dylisis,chest tuube, all the things just name it.I went trou them just to save each organs that involved.BUT still, they failed.I left with only one final resort -Prayers.
When people thought that i supposed to be dead, i was happy surfing the internet after 2 months of my ”death”i too think its about compassion…and not to give up in life…even the chance is really small , but there is chance.THERES NO SUCH THINGS AS NO WAY.Where thereis will there is way.it is VERY SELFISH indeed to opt for death without thinking the feeling of peoples you left behind.Its all in your mind.Bad things come in many version, while some having chronic family problem, some have to face financial or health disorder.
Always take words from smart people.
What make you think that death could be better for him.?HAVE YOU EVER EXPERIENCE death or at least being in coma like what i went trou?
DONT BE SURE OF SOMETHING YOU DONT KNOW…we are not sure of what in the other realm/life.
When you think life is suck….it is better at least you already see the picture.Dont ever wish you know what death is like.I know how its like when your organs not functioning but you still living.And imagine when you are both not living and of course none of yr organs is functioning…NEVER be really sure of something you dont know.