I have been reading about physician-assisted suicide since I found out that there is such a thing in some form or other. I took a class on Bioethics at the Seminary where I was a student and I’ve been also reading an excellent blog by Mr. Wesley Smith called Secondhand Smoke. All in all, I have kept myself informed. But nothing could have prepared me for a viewing of a film, which aired on the PBS’ program Frontline. The film was called Suicide Tourist* and it is about a man, an American who decides to commit suicide through the help of a Swiss suicide clinic, Dignitas. The film charts his “journey” and focuses on the last four days of his life.
Right from the beginning of the film, we are alerted that Craig Ewert will commit suicide, in other words, that he will go through with it. Despite the fact that this was obvious to the viewer, I was still hoping that he would have changed his mind and chosen life.
After I finished watching the film and have witnessed a suicide of a man, who has given up hope, I started feeling queasy. I had dinner about an hour before I saw the film, and suddenly I could feel the pasta and tomato sauce slowly making its way up. My reaction was obviously visceral, concrete and immediate. Like any well-balanced human being, I am disturbed by a mere mention of a suicide. But I realized that what was forcing my dinner to come up was not the actual suicide, or even that this man had wishes of dying. What made me quite literally sick to my stomach was the fact that he was assisted by many people to do such a thing.
There was a certain level of hollowness in the movements, whether physical or intellectual that everyone in the documentary made. The man who decided to end his life was joyless and believed that there was nothing else left beyond the materiality he sees in front of him. He tried to reason his way around the fact that he has decided to kill himself but all of this was done in vain.
His wife sat beside him, listlessly, resigned to her husband’s distorted view of reality. In effect, she said that it is simply not worth it anymore trying to help him shave and clean and eat. And, of course, there is the inevitable “it will get worse.”
Then there are people of Dignitas. What motivation drives them to commit such acts of ignorance and darkness (besides money)? What drives a doctor, sworn by a Hippocratic oath to kill rather than heal? What drives a seemingly intelligent and sane doctor to say to the “patient” who wishes to end his life: “happy journey?” “Happy journey? Happy journey?!” This is insanity. As if world is made of New Age emotions, where evil can not only be denied but also made into a happy event. We should be outraged that this is happening in a civilized world.
If there was a theme in the documentary, it should be punctuated by hollow misunderstanding of one’s life. At the end, Craig Ewert said to his wife that he would like a first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony played at the time of his chosen death. An affected move? Did he really enjoy Beethoven? And why choose such life giving harmony and musical symmetry for a series of discordant and chaotic acts? How can something so beautiful be part of such ugliness?
A small boombox was brought to the dingy apartment rented by Dignitas. The first movement began as Craig Ewert was assisted into the darkness. The sound did not correspond with the act and it all seemed a bit stilted, awkward like a sentence brimming with inclusive language. I felt a bit like Alex in Clockwork Orange: I didn’t want to associate Beethoven (my favorite composer) with death so I turned off the sound completely. (Since I’ve seen the documentary, I have listened to the Ninth and I am happy to report that there are no associations with physician-assisted suicide).
Just like that, Craig Ewert was gone. Erased from existence. His body was gone and so was, according to the act, his soul. Or better yet, his soul never existed.
Even as I write this, I have to admit that I am still slightly queasy from remembering the details of the documentary. Where do we go from here? I honestly don’t know but one thing I do know for certain: death was conquered and life must be affirmed every step of the way.
*The documentary aired on PBS in March.
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