"Love me & help me Die" Dignitas returns to UK news

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press

Wednesday January 25, 2006 15:53

by belladonna

Dignitas was set up in 1998 by Swiss lawyer, Ludwig Minelli, who runs it as a non-profit organisation to assist people whose paliative care is felt to be too ardous and who rather favour euthnasia as an option.

["Dr Michael Irwin said he had provided "advice and encouragement" to five Britons about visiting the Dignitas clinic in Zurich during the past two years. The 74-year-old, who was struck off the medical register last year for obtaining drugs to help a friend die on the Isle of Man, also insisted he was willing to face jail over the issue.
Dr Irwin told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "In the past two years I have given advice and counsel and encouragement to five terminally ill people to go from England over to Dignitas."]

The "right to die with dignity" is one of the most interesting of the new rights being articulated in Europe and beyond in the last years. It has found its way into the recent Catalan estatut, yet without any supporting qualifying laws. Its a right, but we can't decide how to protect or enshrine it or how far that right may be allowed to supercede other rights - the right to refuse medical treatment &c...

The possibility that Dr (non licensed) M. Irwin
may face criminal proceedings in the UK has meant the return of the "Dignitas" debate.

news links

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=122552006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,1694235,00.html?gusrc=rss
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=121112006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4645650.stm
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article340822.ece
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/25/neuth25.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/25/ixnewstop.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/25/neuth125.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/25/ixnewstop.html

other links-
UK support group
http://www.dignityindying.org.uk/
the original Swiss group
Dignitas
Postfach 9 - CH 8127 Forch
Telefon national: 044-980 44 59
Telefon international: +41 44 980 44 59
Telefax national: 044-980 14 21
Telefax international: +41 44 980 14 21
http://www.dignitas.ch/

[ Of course, all you have to do is buy a few grammes of smack now, and keep them carefully for that final day. ]