British TV Will Show Assisted Suicide

Allie @ Gone Hollywood | Wednesday, December 10, 2008

A documentary that shows the deliberate act in which a terminally ill man takes his own life at a Swiss euthanasia clinic will be shown Wednesday night on British television.

Craig Ewert, a 59-year-old retired professor, suffered from motor neuron disease, more commonly known in the U.S. as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

The progressive, degenerative disorder destroys the cells that control voluntary muscle activity such as talking, walking, breathing and swallowing, according to the National Institutes of Health. There is no cure and no standard course of treatment.

Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper reported Tuesday that Ewert, a married father of two grown children, died Sept. 26, 2006, just five months after he was diagnosed.

His suicide was aided by the Swiss group Dignitas, the Mail said. Switzerland is the only country where assisted suicide is legal for nonresidents. Under the law, the patient must take the final action.

‘The Suicide Tourist,’ by Canadian director John Zaritsky, shows Ewert swallowing a dose of sedatives and then biting down on a mouth-operated switch to turn off the ventilator keeping him alive.

The Mail said Ewert, an American who lived in Harrowgate in northern England, paid the Dignitas 3,000 pounds, or more than $4,400, to cover the assisted suicide, his cremation and to ship his ashes back to Britain.

His wife of 37 years, Mary Ewert, is shown by his side, the Mail said. As he is slipping away, she asks,”“Can I give you a big kiss?”

Then she adds: “I love you, sweetheart, so much. Have a safe journey and see you some time.”

In the Point Grey Pictures documentary, to be aired on the Sky Real Lives channel, Ewert discusses his reasons for choosing suicide.

“I have death or I have suffering and death,” he says. “This way makes a whole lot of sense to me.”