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Assisted Suicide Campaigner: It's Time To Help People With Depression To Kill Themselves
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
April 24, 2006

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND--In the eight years since it was founded, the Swiss assisted-suicide clinic Dignitas has helped more than 450 people kill themselves.

So, as if to keep in pace with what most business ventures do when things are going well, founder Ludwig Minelli announced earlier this month that Dignitas is branching out. Not only is he planning to open a chain of trendy assisted suicide centers, he wants to cater to people who have physical and mental illnesses, such as chronic depression.

"We never say no," Minelli told the Sunday Times.

Forty-two of those who took advantage of Dignitas' death services came from England or Wales. Most, but not all, were in the final stages of terminal illness. Some had disabilities or were worried that they might become dependent on others.

Helping a person to commit suicide is illegal in the United Kingdom, but is allowed under certain guidelines in Switzerland. Pro-euthanasia campaigners in the UK, such as the group Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society) are pressing for a change in British law to allow physician-assisted suicide for patients who are terminally ill, with less than six months to live, in untreatable pain, and do not have a mental illness.

"The idea of a terminal illness as a condition for assisted suicide is a British obsession," Minelli argued.

Recent research has showed that few doctors in Great Britain support making doctor-assisted suicide legal.

Many disability rights and other groups have opposed efforts to legalize assisted suicide, arguing that doing so would put vulnerable people with physical and mental disabilities at greater risk.

"People recover from mental illness -- that's certainly not the time to be making a decision about whether to live or die," Brian Iddon, chairman of the Care Not Killing alliance, told the Times.

Two years ago, Robert and Jennifer Stokes, a couple from England, died in Zurich by swallowing lethal doses of drugs supplied by Dignitas. Mr. Stokes, 59, had epilepsy while Mrs. Stokes, 53, had diabetes and back problems. Neither had been terminally ill.

In January of this year, general practitioner Dr. Anne Turner traveled from Bath to take her own life in Zurich with help from Dignitas.

Turner, 66, reportedly was in the early stages of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a condition in which brain cells that control movement are lost over time. People with PSP usually survive six to ten years after the first symptoms appear. Turner said she was having trouble speaking and swallowing, and used a cane to help her walk. She told reporters she could no longer bathe independently, and that she was worried she would have to use a wheelchair at some point.

Related:
"Chain of suicide clinics planned" (The Times)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2136723,00.html

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