A film showing a terminally-ill man ending his own life at a Swiss clinic has reignited the debate about assisted suicide in Britain, where it was due to be screened
LONDON: A film showing a terminally-ill man ending his own life at a Swiss clinic has reignited the debate about assisted suicide in Britain, where it was due to be screened on Wednesday.
Craig Ewert, a 59-year-old former university lecturer from the United States, suffered from motor neurone disease and chose to end his life rather than endure its “nightmare” symptoms, his wife Mary said.
The couple allowed his 2006 death at the Dignitas clinic near Zurich, Switzerland to be filmed by Oscar-winning Canadian documentary maker John Zaritsky. The film, to be shown on Wednesday night, shows Ewert, who had retired to Britain, using his teeth to activate a timer which switches off his life support machine in 45 minutes, according to press previews.
With Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony playing in the background, he then drinks a heavy dose of barbiturates and a Dignitas representative says: “I wish you good travelling.”
His wife, who earlier told him: “I love you sweetheart, so much, have a safe journey and see you sometime,” holds his hand and kisses him after a machine which aids his breathing switches off with a loud beep.
Mary Ewert wrote in the Independent newspaper that allowing the cameras in to film her husband’s last moments “was about facing the end of life honestly.” “He was keen to have it shown because when death is hidden and private, people don’t face their fears about it. They don’t acknowledge that it is going to happen, they don’t reflect on it, they don’t want to face it,” she added.
The film has split opinion in Britain, where assisted suicide is a controversial topic following a string of recent cases.
Phil Willis, the Liberal Democrat lawmaker for Harrogate, the northern English town where Ewert lived, told BBC radio the film was trying to “promote assisted suicide” and should not be shown.
The Daily Mail said in an editorial: “What sort of society have we become when the killing of a man is broadcast on prime time TV in the name of entertainment?”
But Barbara Gibbon, head of Sky Real Lives, the channel which will show the film, said it was important to “stimulate debate about this issue through powerful, individual and engaging stories.”
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