Assissted suicide of American Craig Ewert to be broadcast on British television
By CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, December 9th 2008, 1:14 PM




Craig Ewert dictates a letter to his children prior to leaving for his assisted suicide in Switzerland. His death will be shown on British television.

The suicide of Craig Ewert will be televized.

In a move that has outraged religious leaders and euthanasia opponents, Britain's SKY television will broadcast footage Wednesday of the critically ill American ex-pat committing assisted suicide.

"Can I give you a big kiss?" his wife, Mary, says just before the almost completely paralyzed patient turns off his ventilator with a mouth-operated switch.

"I love you, sweetheart, so much," she says in footage taken more than two years ago. "Have a safe journey and see you some time."

Then Ewert bites down on the switch and sips a lethal dose of pain killers through a straw as Mozart plays in the background.

Forty-five minutes later, Ewart, age 59, is dead.

A computer science professor from Chicago who moved to England "to get out of Bush's America," Ewert was suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease when he died on Sept. 26, 2006, in Switzerland.

Ewert's last moments were filmed by Oscar-winning Canadian director John Zaritsky for his documentary, "The Suicide Tourist."

"My anxieties are that the program will influence public opinion," said John Beyer, director of Mediawatch UK.

"It is regrettable that Sky is broadcasting this," the British group Care Not Killing added.

A father of two grown children who supported his choice, Ewert voices no regrets about ending his life in the film and says suicide is the only alternative to "utter hell."

"Once I become completely paralyzed, then I am nothing more than a living tomb that takes in nutrients through a tube in the stomach," he says. "It's painful."

Ewert, who was on his death bed just five months after being stricken with the disease, paid the controversial Swiss euthanasia support group Dignitas about $4,500 to help him get to the other side.

"I have had a pretty good run," Ewert says in the film. "I think I can take my bow and say, 'Thanks, it has been fun. I would do it again.'"



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_w...ig_ewer-1.html

Thanks Bobby...I was going to put the link on the survivors of suicide forum but Christmas is hard enough without adding to it.

I so completely agree with his decision.