British conductor and wife in Swiss suicide
A renowned British conductor and his wife have died at an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland.
The family said Sir Edward Downes, aged 85, and his 74-year-old wife Joan died "peacefully and under circumstances of their own choosing" at the Dignitas premises in Zurich.
"After 54 happy years together, they decided to end their own lives rather than continue to struggle with serious health problems," said the family statement on Tuesday.
Edward Downes had long associations with the Royal Opera House - where he conducted every season for more than 50 years - and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, where he became principal conductor and later conductor emeritus. He was knighted in 1991.
Assisted suicide and passive euthanasia is legal in Switzerland and Dignitas handles foreign requests for the service. More than 100 Britons have been helped to die by Dignitas since 1998, including another elderly couple earlier this year.
The Downes case is certain to spark more debate over the practice in Britain, which has the strictest regulations on the matter in Europe.
It is a criminal offence, punishable by up to 14 years' imprisonment, to assist in the death of another person in Britain. However there have been no prosecutions to date of anyone who helped a friend or family member travel to Switzerland to die.
swissinfo.ch and agencies
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Bonita, while your view about assisting suicide and the motivation of others may well be correct, I do not the comment about "a reasonably healthy person" applies here.
Quote: "Although not terminally ill, Downes had been coping with increasing deafness and near total blindness for many years. He had become almost totally dependent on his wife after his health declined following a hip replacement. Lady Downes was diagnosed with terminal secondary cancer of the liver and pancreas and given weeks to live"
Well, I think it's cowardly, and I think it's dangerous to allow helping the suicide of a reasonably healthy person, even if he is 85. How soon would grown children be hinting - and how many old people would think, "Oh, I'm so selfish; I really should kill myself so the kids have my money."
I thoroughly agree with the comment below. Life can become a major and horrific burden, even to someone who has soared to such heights and being able to just say no to a further burdened existence becomes, well, not a life saver, but a quality of life saver.
I would certainly want to have this option if life were to become too dreadful for me.