Gordon Brown has said he is opposed to assisted suicide ahead of the broadcast of a controversial documentary showing the harrowing moment a retired university professor dies in a Swiss clinic.
The Prime Minister warned television producers they had a "wider duty" to viewers, and said he had always opposed legislation on assisted dying because he believed that nobody should "feel under pressure" to agree to such a death.
Mr Brown said: "These are very difficult issues and we should all remember at the heart of any single individual case are families and people in very difficult circumstances who have to make for themselves very difficult choices and none of us would want to go through that.
"I believe it is a matter of conscience and there are different views on each side of the House about what should be done.
The end: The moment motor neurone sufferer Craig Ewert, 59, switches off his ventilator at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland
"I believe that it's necessary to ensure that there is a never a case in the country where a sick or elderly person feels under pressure to agree to an assisted death or somehow feels it's the expected thing to do.
"That's why I've always opposed legislation for assisted deaths."
Just minutes before Mr Ewert's death, Mary, his wife of 37 years asks him: 'Can I give you a big kiss?' She adds: 'I love you sweetheart so much. Have a safe journey and see you some time.'
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, Mary, 59, explained why she wanted the world to share his dying moment, she said: 'The film is a wonderful tribute to my husband. I have absolutely no regrets about agreeing to leave the camera rolling as Craig died. It's what we both wanted.
'The only time I asked the film crew to leave was around 30 minutes after Craig had died. I needed to cry and I wanted to do that alone.
'If this film gets people thinking about death and talking about it, that's all that Craig would have wished.
'The film examines the process of death. Craig wanted to get the message across, "Look, this is what death is like. It's not scary."
'Craig believe in honesty about everything. To honestly show what it looks like to die will, hopefully, help wipe away people's terrors.
'We were both convinced that controversial issues - such as showing someone dying on TV - are only controversial because there's such a taboo surrounding them.'
Mr Ewert's death will be the first assisted suicide shown on British television and is likely to trigger a fresh broadcasting standards row.
But Mr Ewert's wife maintains she does not feel it was intrusive or wrong to allow the cameras to film the end of her husband' s life.
'This is Craig's way of living on,' she said. ' I get weepy when I watch the film but, strangely, I don't cry when I watch him die.
'I cry at the scene which shows the two of us in a park in Harrogate.
'We were so happy and had so many plans. I don't cry that Craig chose to die as he did.
'But I weep to see what the illness took from us.'
The programme was condemned last night as dangerous and grotesque amid fears that it would 'undermine people's right to life' and risked glorifying suicide.
The anger provoked by the Sky documentary on the controversial Swiss euthanasia company Dignitas came as it was disclosed that the Crown Prosecution Service would bring no charges against the parents of a paralysed rugby player who also committed suicide in Switzerland.
Mr Ewert, an American father-of-two who was living in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, was diagnosed with motor neurone disease five months before his death.
His health deteriorated rapidly. He required a ventilator to help him breathe and the chronic wasting disease threatened to rob him of his ability to swallow.
His wife told the Mail: 'It was Craig's worst nightmare.
'When he was a young boy he suffered a bout of polio and was paralysed for several weeks so that his mother had to carry him everywhere.
'The terror of being paralysed stayed with him.
'He was also fearful of suffocation. Now he was facing his two greatest fears.
'We have always been extremely close and talked about everything, and over the years we had discussed death.
'When he started talking about taking his own life, I wasn't surprised. I backed him.
'No doctor could promise him a painless death with the disease he had.
'He knew it was going to be a slow and traumatic decline.
'My greatest fear was that I would have to watch him suffer and not be able to help. I would have felt his torturer.'
Mr Ewert decided to use the services of Dignitas to end his life and paid it £3,000.
In the film he is seen talking lucidly about the reasons for his decision to die and describes his body as a 'living tomb'.
Oscar-winning Canadian documentary director John Zaritsky was given access to Dignitas and recorded everything that happened on 26 September 2006 with the blessing of Mr Ewert and his family.
Helped by Dignitas 'escort' Arthur Bernhard, Mr Ewert is shown using his teeth to activate a timer which switches off his life-support machine in 45 minutes.
The patient is then warned: 'Mr Ewert if you drink this you're going to die.'
As Beethoven's Ninth plays in the background, he drinks the lethal dose of barbiturate sodium phenobarbital from a cup using a straw.
The Dignitas representative, who holds the cup for him, says: 'I wish you good travelling' and he loses consciousness minutes later as his wife holds his hand.
Later there is a loud beep as the breathing aid machine turns itself off.
The Dignitas man checks his pulse in his neck and says: 'He's gone.'
Mrs Ewert is then seen kissing his body. Explaining the situation he found himself in, Mr Ewert said: 'I am tired of the disease but I am not tired of living. I still enjoy life enough that I would like to continue, but the thing is that I really cannot.
'If I opt for life then that is choosing to be tortured rather than end this journey and start the next one. I cannot take the risk. Let's face it, when you're completely paralysed and cannot talk how do you let somebody know you are suffering? This could be a complete and utter hell.'
He added: 'Once I become completely paralysed then I am nothing more than a living tomb that takes in nutrients through a tube in the stomach - it's painful.'
Speaking three days before his death, he said: 'There are people who will say, "Suicide is wrong, God has forbidden it. You cannot play God and take your own life".
'But if somebody wants to take their own life obviously they feel a reason for that. We may not think it's a good reason but it is that person's life.
'I have had a pretty good run. I think I can take my bow and say, "Thanks, it has been fun, I would do it again".'
Mr Ewert decided not to allow his children Ivan, 35, and Katrina, 33, to be at his deathbed in a Zurich apartment because he feared it would make it more difficult to go through with it.
Director John Zaritsky said he wanted the film to be controversial and spark a public debate.
'That was probably the most difficult moment of my entire career - to film a man dying that you had followed for four days was pretty amazing. Craig was the hero of the film.'
But Dominica Roberts of the Pro-Life Alliance said. 'It is both sad and dangerous to show this kind of thing on the television.
'It is sad because any suicide is sad. It is dangerous because it could have a copycat effect. The point of the laws are to protect vulnerable people.'
The law in question is the Suicide Act of 1961, which made it no longer a crime to attempt suicide, but set a maximum 14 year sentence for assisting it.
The wording says it is an offence to 'aid, abet, counsel or procure a suicide or attempted suicide'.
Dr Trevor Stammers, of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said the spectacle of having your death broadcast on TV was grotesque.
Phyllis Bowman, of Right to Life, said: 'This is promoting assisted suicide. What kind of effect do they imagine it is going to have on a depressive. It undermines the vulnerable and it also undermines people's right to life.'
Phil Willis, the LibDem MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, where Mr Ewert lived, said: 'The idea that we can make a documentary actually in someways glorifying suicide seems to me to be a step we should at least challenge in terms of the morality of it, if not condemn.'
Barbara Gibbon, of Sky Real Lives, said: 'This is an issue that more and more people are confronting and this documentary is an informative, articulate and educated insight into the decisions some people have to make.
'I think it's important that TV broadcasters can stimulate debate about this issue.'
Right to Die will be shown on Sky Real Lives tonight at 9pm.
Do you think this will have any impact on "Right to Die" laws here in the United States?
The Prime Minister warned television producers they had a "wider duty" to viewers, and said he had always opposed legislation on assisted dying because he believed that nobody should "feel under pressure" to agree to such a death.
Mr Brown said: "These are very difficult issues and we should all remember at the heart of any single individual case are families and people in very difficult circumstances who have to make for themselves very difficult choices and none of us would want to go through that.
"I believe it is a matter of conscience and there are different views on each side of the House about what should be done.
The end: The moment motor neurone sufferer Craig Ewert, 59, switches off his ventilator at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland
"I believe that it's necessary to ensure that there is a never a case in the country where a sick or elderly person feels under pressure to agree to an assisted death or somehow feels it's the expected thing to do.
"That's why I've always opposed legislation for assisted deaths."
Just minutes before Mr Ewert's death, Mary, his wife of 37 years asks him: 'Can I give you a big kiss?' She adds: 'I love you sweetheart so much. Have a safe journey and see you some time.'
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, Mary, 59, explained why she wanted the world to share his dying moment, she said: 'The film is a wonderful tribute to my husband. I have absolutely no regrets about agreeing to leave the camera rolling as Craig died. It's what we both wanted.
'The only time I asked the film crew to leave was around 30 minutes after Craig had died. I needed to cry and I wanted to do that alone.
'If this film gets people thinking about death and talking about it, that's all that Craig would have wished.
'The film examines the process of death. Craig wanted to get the message across, "Look, this is what death is like. It's not scary."
'Craig believe in honesty about everything. To honestly show what it looks like to die will, hopefully, help wipe away people's terrors.
'We were both convinced that controversial issues - such as showing someone dying on TV - are only controversial because there's such a taboo surrounding them.'
Mr Ewert's death will be the first assisted suicide shown on British television and is likely to trigger a fresh broadcasting standards row.
But Mr Ewert's wife maintains she does not feel it was intrusive or wrong to allow the cameras to film the end of her husband' s life.
'This is Craig's way of living on,' she said. ' I get weepy when I watch the film but, strangely, I don't cry when I watch him die.
'I cry at the scene which shows the two of us in a park in Harrogate.
'We were so happy and had so many plans. I don't cry that Craig chose to die as he did.
'But I weep to see what the illness took from us.'
The programme was condemned last night as dangerous and grotesque amid fears that it would 'undermine people's right to life' and risked glorifying suicide.
The anger provoked by the Sky documentary on the controversial Swiss euthanasia company Dignitas came as it was disclosed that the Crown Prosecution Service would bring no charges against the parents of a paralysed rugby player who also committed suicide in Switzerland.
Mr Ewert, an American father-of-two who was living in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, was diagnosed with motor neurone disease five months before his death.
His health deteriorated rapidly. He required a ventilator to help him breathe and the chronic wasting disease threatened to rob him of his ability to swallow.
His wife told the Mail: 'It was Craig's worst nightmare.
'When he was a young boy he suffered a bout of polio and was paralysed for several weeks so that his mother had to carry him everywhere.
'The terror of being paralysed stayed with him.
'He was also fearful of suffocation. Now he was facing his two greatest fears.
'We have always been extremely close and talked about everything, and over the years we had discussed death.
'When he started talking about taking his own life, I wasn't surprised. I backed him.
'No doctor could promise him a painless death with the disease he had.
'He knew it was going to be a slow and traumatic decline.
'My greatest fear was that I would have to watch him suffer and not be able to help. I would have felt his torturer.'
Mr Ewert decided to use the services of Dignitas to end his life and paid it £3,000.
In the film he is seen talking lucidly about the reasons for his decision to die and describes his body as a 'living tomb'.
Oscar-winning Canadian documentary director John Zaritsky was given access to Dignitas and recorded everything that happened on 26 September 2006 with the blessing of Mr Ewert and his family.
Helped by Dignitas 'escort' Arthur Bernhard, Mr Ewert is shown using his teeth to activate a timer which switches off his life-support machine in 45 minutes.
The patient is then warned: 'Mr Ewert if you drink this you're going to die.'
As Beethoven's Ninth plays in the background, he drinks the lethal dose of barbiturate sodium phenobarbital from a cup using a straw.
The Dignitas representative, who holds the cup for him, says: 'I wish you good travelling' and he loses consciousness minutes later as his wife holds his hand.
Later there is a loud beep as the breathing aid machine turns itself off.
The Dignitas man checks his pulse in his neck and says: 'He's gone.'
Mrs Ewert is then seen kissing his body. Explaining the situation he found himself in, Mr Ewert said: 'I am tired of the disease but I am not tired of living. I still enjoy life enough that I would like to continue, but the thing is that I really cannot.
'If I opt for life then that is choosing to be tortured rather than end this journey and start the next one. I cannot take the risk. Let's face it, when you're completely paralysed and cannot talk how do you let somebody know you are suffering? This could be a complete and utter hell.'
He added: 'Once I become completely paralysed then I am nothing more than a living tomb that takes in nutrients through a tube in the stomach - it's painful.'
Speaking three days before his death, he said: 'There are people who will say, "Suicide is wrong, God has forbidden it. You cannot play God and take your own life".
'But if somebody wants to take their own life obviously they feel a reason for that. We may not think it's a good reason but it is that person's life.
'I have had a pretty good run. I think I can take my bow and say, "Thanks, it has been fun, I would do it again".'
Mr Ewert decided not to allow his children Ivan, 35, and Katrina, 33, to be at his deathbed in a Zurich apartment because he feared it would make it more difficult to go through with it.
Director John Zaritsky said he wanted the film to be controversial and spark a public debate.
'That was probably the most difficult moment of my entire career - to film a man dying that you had followed for four days was pretty amazing. Craig was the hero of the film.'
But Dominica Roberts of the Pro-Life Alliance said. 'It is both sad and dangerous to show this kind of thing on the television.
'It is sad because any suicide is sad. It is dangerous because it could have a copycat effect. The point of the laws are to protect vulnerable people.'
The law in question is the Suicide Act of 1961, which made it no longer a crime to attempt suicide, but set a maximum 14 year sentence for assisting it.
The wording says it is an offence to 'aid, abet, counsel or procure a suicide or attempted suicide'.
Dr Trevor Stammers, of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said the spectacle of having your death broadcast on TV was grotesque.
Phyllis Bowman, of Right to Life, said: 'This is promoting assisted suicide. What kind of effect do they imagine it is going to have on a depressive. It undermines the vulnerable and it also undermines people's right to life.'
Phil Willis, the LibDem MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, where Mr Ewert lived, said: 'The idea that we can make a documentary actually in someways glorifying suicide seems to me to be a step we should at least challenge in terms of the morality of it, if not condemn.'
Barbara Gibbon, of Sky Real Lives, said: 'This is an issue that more and more people are confronting and this documentary is an informative, articulate and educated insight into the decisions some people have to make.
'I think it's important that TV broadcasters can stimulate debate about this issue.'
Right to Die will be shown on Sky Real Lives tonight at 9pm.
Do you think this will have any impact on "Right to Die" laws here in the United States?
Do you think the BBC was irresponsible for showing this program?
1 comment:
I think if this movie was aired in the US and enough people watched it, it would cause quite a bit of controversy. Euthenasia is a very touchy subject with some people who beleive that it is murder or suicide. If it only shows in the UK though, it probably won't have any impact on American laws. I personally don't think it is irresponsible of BBC to show it as long as they warn viewers that it may be disturbing to some people. Also, I don't think it will "glorify" suicide. There is a difference between committing suicide because you're depressed and euthenasia because you're terminally ill and already dying. I do see how it could cause lots of controversy in the UK though.
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