‘People should be allowed to choose when they want to die’

"True Talk" puts people in front of the camera who are fighting prejudice or discrimination. They answer questions that nobody would normally dare to ask directly. 

In 2017, 734 people ended their lives using the services of assisted suicide organisation, Exit, which operates in German- and Italian-speaking Switzerland.

Erica, a 65-year-old assisted suicide counsellor explains what her job entails, what preconceptions she faces and why you have to love people in order to be there for them in the last minutes of their life.

Because of her job, Erica is familiar with the accusation that ‘dying counsellors’ are ‘murderers’. But she argues, ‘dying counsellors have nothing to do with murder”. After all, it takes place in agreement with those affected, she says, “I’m not taking an active role, I’m just the bearer of the medication”.

For Erica, the fact that it is possible to go down this route in Switzerland has a lot to do with dignity and nothing to do with murder. “In my opinion, to be part of an open society means that the decision of whether one is allowed to die as a senile or seriously ill person, is not made by medicine, but by the individual”.

(SRF, swissinfo.ch)