Film stokes right-to-die debate

LONDON: Britons this week watched Mr Craig Ewert die on TV, in a film showing how he travelled to a Zurich clinic in 2006 to take a fatal dose of barbiturates.

Shown by Sky Television on Wednesday, Right To Die? is said to be the first British TV broadcast of the moment of death in a voluntary euthanasia case.

It has thrown a new bomb into an already contentious debate.

Almost totally incapacitated by motor neuron disease, Mr Ewert, a former computer engineer, was seen looking at his interviewer and laying out his options.

'If I go through with it, I have death,' Mr Ewert, 59, said. 'If I don't go through with it, my choice is essentially to suffer and to inflict suffering on my family, and then die.' He chose the quick way.

Britain's obsession with reality television reached new heights - or depths - with the broadcast of the assisted suicide of Mr Ewert at a Swiss clinic.

Showing the final moment of death had long been a final taboo, even for no-holds-barred British TV, where sex and violence are common.

Care Not Killing, an anti-euthanasia movement aligned with religious groups, denounced the broadcast as 'a cynical attempt to boost TV ratings' and persuade Parliament to legalise assisted suicide.

About 100 Britons have committed suicide at Dignitas in the past decade or so, said Ms Jo Cartwright, a spokesman for Dignity in Dying, a lobbying group.

It is illegal in Britain to 'aid, abet, counsel or procure' suicide.

Public opinion polls suggest 80 per cent of Britons believe the law should be changed to allow a doctor to end a patient's life in a case like Mr Ewert's, but opposition from influential religious groups remains strong and the anti-suicide law remains in place.

But while the law is clear, its application is murky. The authorities periodically prosecute people who have assisted in suicides in Britain. They are rarely sent to jail, but face many months of distress while waiting to stand trial.

Mr Ewert's wife, Mary, was not prosecuted, despite the fact that she broke the law by, among other things, helping him travel to the clinic.

'For Craig, allowing the cameras to film his last moments was about facing the end honestly,' she wrote in The Independent earlier this week.

'He was keen to have it shown because when death is hidden and private, people don't face their fears about it.'

In the film, Mr Ewert comes across as severely disabled and absolutely determined that he is doing the right thing. His final moments are almost unbearably poignant. Lying on a bed at the Dignitas centre, he signs a consent form with the help of his wife. In his laboured voice, he says: 'I love you, sweetheart, so much.'

She responds: 'Have a safe journey, and see you sometime.'

Using his teeth, Mr Ewert presses the button that turns off his ventilator. He drinks a fatal mixture of barbiturates. And then, as a piece of music he has selected - Beethoven's Ninth Symphony - plays in his room and his wife gently rubs his feet, his life begins to ebb away.

My Comments:
Death is confirmed once we are born. This is THE destination all living things have to arrive. The issue is the path leading to death. Not all paths are the same. Usually the path to death is a miserable one due to illness.
How to ensure one can die smoothly in a dignified manner?