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Suicide in Switzerland
Famed British conductor Sir Edward Downes, 85, went with his wife Joan, 74, to a clinic in Switzerland last week where the two drank a lethal cocktail, committing suicide together. Family members gathered around for their parents’ final moment in the assisted suicide clinic.
Jonathan Groves, Sir Edward’s manager, called their decision “typically brave and courageous.”
Assisted suicide is illegal in Britain – so 117 Britons have traveled to this clinic called “Dignitas” in Zurich. Joan had terminal cancer, but Sir Edward had no record of any life-threatening illness. Their son Caractacus told The New York Times,
They wanted to be next to each other when they died….It is a very civilized way to end your life, and I don’t understand why the legal position in this country doesn’t allow it.
Even if they arrest us and send us to prison, it would have made no difference because it is what our parents wanted.
It is a criminal offense to assist a suicide in Britain. I wonder how Britain plans on slowing the number of people going abroad to commit suicide other than cracking down on those family members or friends that assist (which the government hasn’t done to this point).
back to top25 Comments to “Suicide in Switzerland”
As I’ve written before, there’s a reason God orders the number of our days. In February several years ago, I asked God why my father was still alive–he looked like a concentration camp survivor, barely breathing on his bed, a tube feeding him and the constant blare of garbage television his only entertainment. He hadn’t spoken to me in a year.
The answer–God wasn’t done with him yet.
I wondered about that, but put him into God’s hands. Over the next five months nothing changed about my father’s condition–but something changed in my brother’s heart and he finally reached peace with a dad who had hurt him deeply. All my father did was stay alive–it had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with others.
I’m sorry the Downes didn’t understand that. I’m sorry Mrs. Downes had such a dreadful cancer that she feared. But as so many of you know, 11 days ago I stood and watched a friend die from cancer–and it was a blessed and honorable experience. And the children didn’t have anything to explain or fear when it all was over.
God ordains the length of our days; we can trust him with the outcome.
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How much does Caractacus inherit?
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In one sense you admire the “I can’t live if living is without you” devotion of the husband. But with hospice care and IV morphine drips and fentanyl transdermal patches a patient can achieve pain relief from most cancers.
The entire assisted suicide “movemt” has managed to deny the superior treatmt modalities for pain control. Pain elimination? No. But pain control yes. I think a more loving act would have been to spend-down every asset you have to provide for the wife’s final days.
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“In one sense you admire the “I can’t live if living is without you” devotion of the husband.”
That is an idolatry, and, according to Milton, the specific downfall of Adam: uxoriousness.
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#1, yes I agree that God has numbered our days, but I believe because of sin, our own mistakes, stupidity, ect…, we rarely reach His designed number.(any thoughts?)
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They may be planning to prosecute.
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It is sad, scary and a little romantic all at the same time.
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“In one sense you admire the “I can’t live if living is without you” devotion of the husband.”
Not sure I can admire it. I’m to love God most. My spouse 2nd. If I love my God first, I will want to live FOR him, not for my spouse.
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I would not want my husband to kill himself at my demise, nor would he expect or want me to kill myself at his. But I serve a risen Savior, others are without hope.
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I liken this story to that of the seminary prof who was offered a better role at his school. His wife had dementia and without his comforting presence she decompensated and became difficult to manage. He passed up the promotion to care for his wife. Colleagues scoffed “She doesnt even know who you are anymore!” His response: “But I know who she is!”
I think mild depressive episode is normal after the death of a long-term spouse.
Caractacus shoulda stopped Daddy. But yep, I too wonder about the inheritance angle.
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It’s very sad when anyone chooses to end their own life. Suicide has been taking place for a long time, those who want to end their lives can do it without anyones permission. Whether they go to another country or not, it appears that some people will choose this way, I don’t see how anyone can stop such a person. I don’t find it romantic whatsoever, it’s death and the grave –
Whether inheritance had anything to do with it makes little difference. Those who have no faith in Christ live by the worlds standards and practices – the most important thing we can do as Believers is spread the Word of GOD, the Salvation that awaits anyone who believes in HIM – we cannot stop what the Swiss have chosen to make into law.
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Michelle, thank you for sharing that. A friend of a friend currently is languishing in the last months of cancer. As far as we know, she is not a believer yet during this time has been visited regularly by a Christian woman who has befriended her and often reads Scripture to her.
To be honest, I’d probably want to end it all myself were I in that state of suffering. But our lives are not our own. They belong to God and we (believer and nonbeliever alike) are in his hands and his time. There is a purpose to everything, including suffering.
To address five$55’s comment, God’s timing is not thwarted by anything we do or don’t do. Death entered the world as a direct result of man’s sin. But even the sinful actions of men God uses to accomplish his overall purpose. It is (and we are) all under God’s sovereignty.
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One of my biggest objections is the concept of the “duty to die” that floats around Europe — that if you are old, falling apart, etc., you should release your family and just do the deed and put everyone out of their misery. That’s extremely COLD! My other objection is the inheritance issue. The whole thing stinks and a society that won’t protect its unborn or its elderly doesn’t deserver to exist.
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NJLawyer, good points about the many dangers inherent in the ‘right to die’ movement. Talk about how something can be misused and abused. With fallen human nature being what it is, “legalizing” suicide is a truly bad, bad idea.
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I find nothing courageous, dignified nor “loving” in what the Downes did.
It’s pure cowardice to run from your problems and extremely selfish for her to demand, or whatever she did to coerce her husband, that your perfectly healthy spouse die with you. For the son to find it civilized speaks only his relief of not having to clean up a mess they left behind in his inheritance.
These people are not only Godless but ignorant if they think laws allowing these death chambers—certainly not “clinics”—to operate legally won’t be abused by those seeking to rid themselves of unwanted people for whatever reason. You can “regulate” them until you run out of words, but you’ll never stop a devious person—on either side of the transaction—intent on offing another for gain or making gain by doing the offing.
It would be interesting to be able to know exactly how many times that has already happened just within the 117 now dead Britons.
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I’m with Dylan Thomas and don’t plan to go gently into that good night.
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The Swiss are known for their watches and now their suicides. Now they can give out gold Swiss watches for the second retirement.
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I am wholly opposed to the idea of assisted suicide.
But I simply don’t see how the British government might prosecute anyone in this case. After all:
1) The perps left the country, by all appearances of their own free will. I.e., the suicides, which are a crime in Britain, were committed outside Britain, in a nation where it is not a crime. Generally speaking, I don’t think nations should be able to prosecute their own citizens for acts that are crimes at home, but which were committed in nations where those acts are not criminal. Such prosecutions would be an unwarranted attack on national sovereignty.
2) The perps are dead.
So this woefully misguided couple invited their family members to be there with them when they chose to die. Are you gonna prosecute them for being there?
By what legal and moral principle?
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IOW, I don’t think it can legitimately be argued that their kids “assisted” merely by being there.
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#1 and #5, yes I agree that God has numbered our days I wonder,then, the reason god let’s babies be aborted. It is his will and he knows about it before it happens. I just wonder what’s the reason?
Not sure I can admire it. I’m to love God most. My spouse 2nd. If I love my God first, I will want to live FOR him, not for my spouse. Now that’s a disgusting statement. Living for a ghost above a person. Just a completely vile comment.
There is a purpose to everything, including suffering. Including Suicide? Well, of course, that is god’s will too.
I completely support the Downes’ and their decision. It’s better to die in dignity than to suffer something you are unwilling to do otherwise. I am happy to know that something like this might be available to me should I ever need it.
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“Are you gonna prosecute them for being there?
By what legal and moral principle?”
Let’s see… might undue influence have been involved? MOtive: usher out both parents and you now have your inheritance.
IF you see someone doing something horribly wrong and don’t attempt to stop it, you may not be legally chargeable, but you are morally culpable.
Proverbs 24
11 Deliver them that are carried away unto death, and those that are ready to be slain see that thou hold back.
12 If thou sayest, Behold, we knew not this: doth not he that weigheth the hearts consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his work?
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Death is the best cure for terminal cancer.
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Scott says:
I completely support the Downes’ and their decision. It’s better to die in dignity than to suffer something you are unwilling to do otherwise. I am happy to know that something like this might be available to me should I ever need it.
What makes a death of suicide dignified?
No one knows until you die how it really feels….people imagine it to be painless just because there is no outward struggle, but only the person going through with the dying really knows and can’t tell. Like the articles in the paper about “he died instantly”….how do they know it was instantly? How do they know that there wasn’t a minute or so of dying going on? How does anyone know that death is so nice? I don’t believe it.
Good for you, Scott, that you like this being available and therein is the danger of society getting used to this sort of thinking. Hope it never becomes something that would be forced upon you as you age and get beyond the so-called quality of life ideal.
For anyone to have proof that there is no God, one must have complete knowledge of the universe, which disqualifies all human beings.
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Kwerna (21),
I agree entirely that the children could very well be morally culpable — i.e., before God, at the Last Day. My only point was that I don’t see any legal basis for the British magistrate to prosecute anybody, given that the act was committed in Switzerland, where it is not a crime.
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