A Passage to Switzerland

Debate on legalizing assisted dying (AD) seems to be gaining yet more momentum (at least in the UK), despite numerous setbacks to the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill. This may be due to recent media coverage of high-profile cases of people travelling abroad for assisted dying. For example, Dan James, a 23-year-old rugby player, who was paralyzed after a scrum collapsed on him; Craig Ewert, a 59-year-old university lecturer with motor neurone disease; Dr Anne Turner, suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy, died with assistance 3 years ago, but her final moments were dramatized in ‘A short stay in Switzerland’ on BBC 1 early this year. As I write, Sir Edward Downes, one of Britain’s greatest conductors, and his wife, Joan Downes, ended their lives with the help of the Swiss organization Dignitas in Zurich.