[Infowarrior] - OT: Terry Pratchett exploring assisted suicide

[Richard Forno]

Sir Terry Pratchett begins process that could lead to assisted suicide

Sir Terry Pratchett, the author, has started the formal process that could lead to his assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.

By Martin Evans

3:24PM BST 12 Jun 2011

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/8571142/Sir-Terry-Pratchett-begins-process-that-could-lead-to-assisted-suicide.html

The 63-year-old, who has a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, said he had received the consent forms recently and was now considering whether to sign them.

Sir Terry, made the decision to request the forms after accompanying a motor-neurone sufferer to the Dignitas clinic for a controversial documentary to be screened on Monday evening on BBC TWO.

The film the shows 71-year-old Peter Smedley drink a cocktail of toxins at the clinic before dying in his wife’s arms.

It will be the first time suicide has been broadcast on terrestrial television and has sparked a fierce debate over the right to die issue.

Speaking ahead of the screening Sir Terry said he has now also received the consent forms from Dignitas, but added he had not signed them yet.

He said: “The only thing stopping me [signing them] is that I have made this film and I have a bloody book to finish.”

But he stressed that he was as yet still undecided whether he would eventually take his own life.

He said he changed his mind “every two minutes” but added that if he did choose to die would prefer to do so in England and in the sunshine.

Sir Terry, creator of the Discworld novels, was 60 when he was diagnosed with terminal condition and has since campaigned passionately for a change in the law to allow assisted suicide in Britain.

He has complained that people who wish to undergo the procedure under the current system are forced to commit suicide earlier than necessary because they have to go to Switzerland before they are too ill to travel.

Sir Terry has called for a system that would allow someone with a terminal illness to be given a euthanasia kit they could take home, allowing them to choose the exact time and circumstances of their death.

The writer also revealed that he would not "go to the barricades" and campaign for the right to die for people who had simply grown weary of living.

It is estimated that 21 per cent of people who die at Dignitas do not have a terminal illness.