The Grisly Truth About Assisted Suicide

Here’s a quite astonishing account of assisted suicide at Swiss death clinic Dignitas. It’s a macabre read, but the pro-death conclusion is that it was a great experience. Read this and see that it wasn’t.

Assisted suicide: One last helping hand

This is a story about my late mother-in-law, Rosemary, her struggle with bereavement and Parkinson's disease, and her absolute determination to visit Dignitas in Switzerland for an accompanied suicide. Before retiring, Rosemary worked at a busy GP surgery in west London. She was a stylish lady, liked modern design and was of the Habitat era. She and her husband, Eric, retired to Sussex but, devastatingly, he contracted pancreatic cancer and died in 1998. He was only 73.

Rosemary was of the "stiff-upper-lip" generation and put on a brave face. Despite attentive local friends and family, Rosemary found life as a widow depressingly tough going and missed Eric dreadfully. She had always been a believer in euthanasia and, soon after Eric's death, heard about Dignitas in Switzerland.

Over the next 10 years, Rosemary soldiered on. But in 2010, her balance deteriorated and, after a bad fall, she broke her collarbone. Eventually, she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Rosemary detested being dependent on other people and, to the distress of her family, became increasingly preoccupied with the concept of an accompanied suicide at Dignitas. more