For a full collection of quotations, see the Swissgerman part of our website
December 2024
“What I think the conservative comment is really drawn to is paternalism, i.e., restricting the freedom of people for their own good. I concede permitting assisted dying will result in some people choosing to die against their best interests. People should be free to make bad choices however. The state has no right to stop us from marrying the wrong person, choosing a bad career or having kids against our Best interests.”
“I might not need assisted dying, but if I do, then I 100 per cent want the choice to say ‘I can’t tolerate this level of pain, I want to be able to die at home and have my loved ones with me'. I should have that right. It should be my choice not to suffer.”
Sophie Blake former Channel 5 TV sports presenter
In: “Brighton TV presenter to make emotional plea to MPs on assisted dying” The Argus, 12.9.24
October 2024
“The right to die without unnecessary suffering has been denied for far too long. I have had relatives die of cancer, including a brother with the same cancer I have who died earlier this year. Despite the best care a hospice could provide his last few weeks were no more than a living death which he wanted out of. He ended up in a coma, with no food or liquids and it took him a further five days to die. Who knows what nightmares and agony he went through during those days? I work for an animal welfare group and if someone let their dog die the way my brother did, I would have them prosecuted for cruelty.”
John F. Robins
In: “Proposed Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill – Liam McArthur MSP Summary of Consultation Responses” (PDF, p. 11)
September 2024
“Almost 95% of the patients I have cared for have also been receiving excellent quality Palliative Care; their reasons for seeking VAD [voluntary assisted dying] as their preferred way to die are not due to lack of access to services. Time and again it is existential distress: a loss of the sense of self, dignity, autonomy, meaning, or purpose in life, that causes a kind of hopelessness particularly resistant to palliative interventions. These concerns are particularly prevalent in those seeking access to VAD.”
Dr Clare Fellingham, East Metropolitan Health Service in Western Australia
“I am terminally ill. It's extremely unlikely I'd choose to end my own life under this policy, but I think it's essential that people in my position can choose. That said. The lack of education around palliative and end-of-life care is chronic, and a great many people have fears that are mostly unfounded. Education and support around decision-making will be of utmost importance.”
User Roses2
Comment on: “At last, the chance to legalise assisted dying in the UK – and end the untold, unnecessary anguish” Guardian, 26.7.24
July 2024
“And no family should have to face the torture of walking away from theirloved one’s body. For us, that will always be the hardest part. […]Giving a terminally ill person control and choice over how they dietransforms the remainder of their lives and enhances the qualityand pleasure of their remaining days immeasurably.”
Julie Casson
In: “My husband said he’d found a cure for his terminal illness – then he was gone” Metro, 29.6.24
June 2024
"I can live longer knowing that MAD may be available to me, certainly I will live more peacefully with the prospect."
UK social justice movement activist, former Chair of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, Editor of “Voluntary Euthanasia: experts debate the right to die”
November 2023
"Strong personal faith and support for choice at the end of life are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I support the legalisation of assisted dying because of my religious beliefs, not in spite of them. And I know I am far from alone."
"Having some control of the dying process may lift psychological and general health. For many people, having access to medication gives them the option to exercise their autonomy and die on their own terms. Some of those people choose not to have the medicine dispensed and some have the medication and choose not to take it. We know from feedback they do receive comfort from that."
Julian Gardner
Lawyer, Chairperson of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board, Victoria, Australia
"People who are terminally ill should have the option of dignified and compassionate assisted dying, alongside the wonderful palliative care that already exists. I pray that politicians, lawmakers, and religious leaders have the courage to support the choices terminally ill citizens make in departing Mother Earth with dignity and love."
Desmond Mpilo Tutu (1931 - 2021)
South African Bishop, Human Rights Activist, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
in a video message alongside his interview with the "Washington Post" (Link)
December 2020
"You know, death is something many of us are uncomfortable speaking about. But to die is to be human. And anything human is mentionable. Anything mentionable is manageable."
Tom Hanks
in the movie “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”, basing on the true story of the creator, composer and host of the educational television series “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”, Fred McFeely Rogers (20 March 1928 – 27 February 2003), known as “Mister Rogers”
documentary "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" about Fred Rogers, trailer (Link)
March 2020
"The prohibition of assisted suicide services violates the general right of personality in its manifestation as a right to a self-determined death afforded to persons determined to end their own lives."
The Federal Consttitutional Court of Germany
in its judgment of 26 February 2020 "Criminalisation of assisted suicide services unconstitutional"
Press release by the Court and abstract of the judgment (Link)
December 2017
"I can’t remember the first time I heard the name Dignitas but, like millions of people, what it represents is now well known to me. The vast majority of the British public understand the courage of those seeking a dignified death, and the compassion needed by their loved ones.
Our outdated laws discriminate between rich and poor, discourage proper conversations between patients and their doctors, criminalise grieving relatives who spend time with their loved ones in their dying moments and oblige people to end their lives beforethey are ready. Worst of all, while they are predicated on preserving the sanctity of life, they show no mercy to those facing an agonising death, and deny free will to those whose lives and deaths depend upon it.
It’s time that the UK stopped outsourcing its compassion to Switzerland and began listening to dying people who want and need the most basic choice they will ever face."
Kit Malthouse MP,
Chair, Choice at the End of Life All-Party Parliamentary Group
in: “The True Cost – How the UK outsources death to Dignitas” >> Link / PDF
April 2016
"There is nothing undignified in choosing to allow an illness to run its full course. What is undignified is denying people suffering intolerably their right to choose otherwise."
Michael Short
Journalist and The Sunday's Age opinion editor
in an interview with his cousin Peter Short >> Link
December 2015
"Of everything that someone can ever experience, nothing is really more overwhelming than the possibility of one’s death. Therefore, for most people, it is natural to try and keep this event out of their minds for as long as possible. Although they know that other will die, they do not want to think that this will happen to them – they are terrified of dying, and refuse to discuss it. Thus, it was intriguing to discover, from a research paper published in the Personality and Social Psychology Review, in April 2012, that “thinking about your mortality could help your marriage because an awareness of death makes people value their relation-ships....researchers found that awareness of death can reduce divorce rates, and suggested that contemplating death could make people more positive, and less aggressive or selfish”. I strongly believe that we must openly accept the fact that eventually we will all die – we must be absolutely realistic about this as it is the collective destiny for all living things on this Earth....Today, people live much longer and most deaths occur away from home. Our minds seem unprepared for what our bodies are doing. Whilst we should not have a morbid preoccupation with death, we should plan ahead, carefully considering, in the hope that we have a choice, how we want to die. Our death is as unique as our life – there is no standard model."
Dr. Michael Irwin
Former Medical Director at the United Nations and Founder of the Society for Old Age Rational Suicide
in: "Approaching Old-Old", published June 2014
November 2014
"I want to see a world where everyone has access to death with dignity"
Brittany Lauren Maynard 1984 – 2014
In spring 2014, 29-year-old Brittany Maynard learned that she had terminal brain cancer. Brittany advocated for access for death with dignity, which for her meant that when her suffering became too great, she could call everyone she loves to her side as she tells them she loves them and they say goodbye. She was able to realise her self-chosen ending of suffering and life this way on 1 November 2014.
Brittany's video was filmed just weeks before she chose to advance her time of death, before her suffering became unbearable.
May 2012
“The best thing which eternal law ever ordained was that it allowed us one entrance into life, but many exits. Must I await the cruelty either of disease or of man, when I can depart through the midst of torture, and shake off my troubles? . . . Are you content? Then live! Not content? You may return to where you came from.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (approx. 1 - 65 AC) Roman philosopher, dramatist and statesman
in: Epistulae morales LXX ad Lucilium (Letters to Lucilius)
April 2012
"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric."
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970) British Philosopher and Mathematician
February 2012
"The State may not, consistent with the United States and Georgia Constitutions, make the public advertisement or offer to assist in a suicide a criminal offense."
Justice Hugh Thompson, writing for the Supreme Court of the US-State of Georgia
