Dawson family photo
Dignitas, founded in 1998, are among the best-known. Dignitas, which was featured in a 2012 Frontline documentary, is the only Swiss organization to accept foreigners. In the years since Dignitas’ founding, the Swiss Supreme Court has expanded the law even more, ruling in 2006 that chronically depressed and mentally ill people have a right to assisted suicide. Today, Swiss law allows people with a range of non-terminal and progressive ailments to apply — and if approved — to choose to die. Not all Swiss are on board with this right-to-die, death-with-dignity mission. Opponents In 2011, the Evangelical People’s Party of Switzerlooked at as somehow less warn that land and the Swiss Federal worthy or less worthwhile legal assisted Democratic Union lobthan the lives of others. bied heavily for a citywide But amid those warnings, suicides could referendum in Zurich over many religious, civil rights eventually lead the practice. The May and patient rights groups 2011 ballot measure asked champion the idea that to encouraging residents whether assisted people have a right to die, death for suicide should be banned and that helping should be altogether and whether considered a kindness, not people deemed organizations — Dignitas a crime. Legally assisted undesirable. specifically — should admit suicide, they say, gives foreigners. Despite heavy people who have no hope funding from Switzerland’s of recovery the option to conservative and religious die before physical pain right, the proposed ban was rejected by becomes unbearable or mental abilities 84 percent of voters. And 78 percent are lost. voted to keep assisted suicide services Worldwide, assisted suicide is legal in available to overseas users. only a few places, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Oregon and Washington, and the laws thought of his conservative parents as vary widely. Oregon and Washington have swift-witted and independent. Reg Dawsimilar legislation, legalizing suicide under son grew up in London and met his wife, narrow conditions. A patient must be at then Betty Johnson, in the first years of least 18, a state resident and terminally World War II when they were both at a diagnosed with six months or less to live. community dance. She was 15 and he was The patient must convince a doctor that 17. Reg was getting ready for a stint in the he or she is of sound mind, making two Royal Air Force doing communications oral requests and one written statement. work. Theirs was a long courtship — they Two doctors must sign separate forms didn’t marry until after the war ended, in verifying the patient’s terminal illness. February of 1946. Their wedding picture Then the state must approve the suicide, shows him in uniform, his hair already no sooner than 15 days after the first oral thinning, one hand clasping Betty’s. She is request. After all that, a physician can presmiling a little more broadly, a white veil scribe — but not administer — a lethal, billowing behind her, sprays from a lavish swallow-able drug. No injections. bouquet trailing nearly to her knees. By On the other end of the spectrum is then, both had converted to Catholicism. Switzerland, with the most liberal suicide Dominic speculates the religion offered law in the world. Under article 115 of the them a sense of spiritual security during Swiss Criminal Code, assisting another’s the frightening years of wartime air raids. suicide is criminal only if the motive is for Their oldest child, Teresa, was born personal gain. This sparse pronouncement in 1947. Soon after came Paul, then was interpreted in the 1980s as a legal Dominic and Christopher. After the green light to create self-assisted suicide military, Reg worked as a negotiator in organizations. EXIT, founded in 1997, and continued on next page
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