TV broadcasts assisted suicide

British television aired film of the assisted suicide of a 59-year-old Chicagoan at a Swiss clinic. Craig Ewert, a former computer scientist, was shown in bed with his wife at his side while he took barbiturates with a glass of apple juice. Then he used his teeth to turn off his ventilator, and died on camera.

Parliament quizzed Prime Minister Gordon Brown about the propriety of airing the program. Care Not Killing, an anti-euthanasia group, denounced the broadcast as “a cynical attempt to boost television ratings” and persuade Parliament to legalize assisted suicide.

Mary Ewert wrote in the British press that her husband, who had a motor neuron disease, was eager to have his final moments televised. The scene had been shown previously at film festivals and on Canadian and Swiss TV.