December 11, 2008

Gordon Brown speaks out about Craig Ewert’s televised suicide

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Tonight in Britain, Sky Real Lives viewers will watch as Craig Ewert, 59, dies from an assisted suicide in a Swiss clinic. Ewert had degenerative motor neuron disease and died at a clinic in Zurich run by the group Dignitas.

Gordon Brown said today of assisted death: “I believe that it is necessary to ensure that there is never a case in this country where a sick or elderly person feels under pressure to agree to an assisted death or somehow feels it is the expected thing to do. That is why I have always opposed legislation for assisted deaths. I think it is very important that these issues are dealt with sensitively and without sensationalism and I hope broadcasters remember that they have a wider responsibility to the general public.”

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But unfortunately, there are many cases of people wanting to die - this week there were two reports of assisted suicide in the Times, UK. I don’t think that these patients were pressurised to do so, or that it was the expected thing to do. Craig Ewert and Daniel James both wanted to die, and chose euthanasia, mostly to avoid further suffering for themselves.


Source: The Times

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