RTE to screen footage of Craig Ewert's death
The broadcaster has bought The Suicide Tourist, a documentary about the 59-year-old American who wants to end his life
Jan Battles
RTE is to show footage of the death of a man who travelled to Zurich to end his life, assisted by Dignitas, the right-to-die organisation.

The station has bought a documentary entitled The Suicide Tourist, about an American suffering from motor neurone disease who kills himself in Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal.

To make the documentary, a team led by John Zaritsky, an Oscar-winning Canadian director, was given exclusive access to Dignitas and its clients. It followed Craig Ewert, a 59-year-old American living in Britain, through the last few days of his life.

Ewert had lost the use of his legs as a result of motor neurone disease, and his health was deteriorating rapidly, although he was completely lucid. His death in Zurich was filmed, with his wife at his bedside, along with Dignitas “escort” Arthur Bernhard, who prepared the fatal dose of barbiturates for Ewert to take.

“It was an incredibly difficult experience for all of us,” said Terence McKeown, one of the producers. “I think we’ve all suffered a bit of post-traumatic stress from it. It was profound and stayed with all of us, more so because we spent the previous few days with Craig, travelled with him to Zurich and got to know him quite well.

“[Craig and his wife] were very passionate about an individual’s right to die at a time of their choosing. They felt that what they were doing was the right thing for them, that everybody should have the right to do it and that Craig shouldn’t have had to go to Zurich.

“He should have been able to do it at his home. [He argued] that it is quite inhumane to force people in various states of illness to go to a little apartment in a foreign city to die.”

The programme-makers said an Irish person had approached Dignitas while they were preparing the programme but had not wanted to be filmed.

Three years ago, Martin Barry, a 30-year-old from Cork with advanced multiple sclerosis, travelled to Switzerland and was helped to kill himself by Dignitas. The previous year, a Dublin man in his thirties, who was left quadriplegic after a train accident, also ended his life there.

Speaking on RTE radio shortly afterwards, Ludwig Minelli, the group’s leader, said: “It is always clear it must be a suicide, and this means the person who wants to die must do the last act in their life themselves.”

Dignitas, which charges its customers about €5,000 to cover medical costs, cremation and shipment of their remains back home, is a non-profit organisation.

“No one is getting rich from this,” said McKeown. “These are compassionate people who believe in what they are doing. There is no financial motive in convincing people to go through with it. They can just as easily go home.”

Suicide was decriminalised in Ireland in 1993 — the last country in western Europe to do so — but the legislation introduced at the time criminalised aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring the suicide of another person.

Dan Neville, president of the Irish Association of Suicidology, said: “Apart from the moral and ethical principles involved, there are societal reasons for disallowing euthanasia and assisted suicide.

“There is a fear of developing a slippery slope, whereby if euthanasia becomes acceptable under any circumstances, the boundary of what is considered lawful killing would be stretched. There would be a blurring between voluntary and involuntary euthanasia.”

The Suicide Tourist has been bought for the Frames international documentary slot on RTE 1. “It’s an observational documentary and doesn’t necessarily support or criticise the whole idea of assisted suicide,” the station said.

“With documentaries of a sensitive subject matter, we would always seek to balance it out across our output.”



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle4837919.ece