Back in December, Roxanne Furlong called me. Roxanne is the Associate Editor of New Mobility, a magazine focused on the interests of wheelchair users. It covers the gamut of disability concerns – the arts, lifestyle, leisure, politics and advocacy.
Roxanne called me for comments on the airing of a documentary that featured the suicide and actual death of a “suicide tourist” – the name given to U.K. citizens who travel to Switzerland for the express purpose of killing themselves, using the somewhat expensive services of the organization Dignitas.
The short article, unavailable online, summarizes the situation concisely and also includes my own quotes on the issue. This is from the February 2009 issue of New Mobility, page 14:
Assisted Suicide Aired on Television
Britain’s Sky Real Lives broadcast station took reality TV to new lows by airing “Right to Die: The Suicide Tourist,” the assisted suicide of Craig Ewert, from England. The wife of the retired professor, who had ALS, told The Times that her husband wanted “to show that a terminal illness does not have to result in a painful death.”
“Only individuals who are old, ill and disabled get encouragement, affirmation, and ‘assistance’ in killing themselves when they express such feelings,” says Stephen Drake of Not Dead Yet. “If suicide is really about autonomy, then maybe we shouldn’t interfere with anyone who is serious about killing themselves. Coverage such as this establishes a double standard – in which the lives of old, ill and disabled people are held to be of less value than the lives of younger, healthier, nondisabled individuals. That’s not autonomy, but something somewhat uglier.”
My thanks to Roxanne and New Mobility for keeping readers of the magazine informed of the latest developments in the euthanasia/assisted suicide debates. –Stephen Drake