Couldnt Adapt

[Misspears]

Peacefully clutching her loving niece’s hand, a pensioner committed suicide at Dignitas after she despaired of modern life.

The 89-year-old retired art teacher, named only as Anne, could not keep up with technology and said computers and TV had created a “lack of humanity”.

The British OAP spent a few days sightseeing with her niece then slipped away at the clinic near Zurich in Switzerland.

Shortly before her death from a fatal dose of drugs, she had claimed people were addicted to gadgets.

She said: “Why do so many people spend their lives sitting in front of a computer or television?

“I have never had a television. People are becoming more and more remote. We are becoming robots. It is this lack of humanity.”

She added: “I find myself swimming against the current, and you can’t do that. If you can’t join them, get off.”

The environmentalist was also worried about the damage being wrought on the planet by overcrowding and pollution.

And she complained about finding supermarket shelves stacked with ready meals.

Unmarried Anne, who did not have any children, explained: “They say adapt or die. At my age, I feel I can’t adapt, because the new age is not an age that I grew up to understand.

"I see everything as cutting corners. All the old-fashioned ways of doings things have gone.”

In the UK assisted suicide is illegal and helping someone die can carry a 14-year jail term.

But legal guidelines state anyone acting with compassion towards a loved one is unlikely to be prosecuted.




Getty Images 

Final days: Dignitas in Pfaeffikon near Zurich


MPs could get a free vote on plans to change the law within months, possibly in June. The Assisted Dying Bill, championed by Lord Falconer, would allow adult patients with fewer than six months to live to get help killing themselves.

Ex-Royal Navy electrician Anne played tennis until age 70 but in recent years had suffered heart and lung disease and spent 11 days in hospital. She was not terminally ill but she feared another hospital stay or ending up in a nursing home.

Anne, of Sussex, wrote in her submission to the clinic: “My daily action to feed birds in the garden is a joy.

"However, my lack of strength and energy and declining health is a life with no enviable future. My life has been full, with so many adventures and tremendous independence.”

At the clinic on March 27, Anne took a fatal dose of barbiturates.

Niece Linda, 54, said: “I was right beside Anne, holding her hand from the time she took the ­barbiturate to her death. Unless you die in your sleep, beside the person you love, or in their arms, I cannot think of a better death.”

More than 200 British nationals have died at Dignitas since its launch in 1998.

Michael Irwin, of the Society for Old Age Rational Suicide, helped with Anne’s application to the clinic.

He said: “She felt her life was complete. With quiet determination, she ended her life with dignity.”

Dr Irwin, 82, met Anne and Linda to discuss the trip.

He said: “She was an 89-year-old lady, fiercely independent all her life, who had conditions, including heart and lung disease, which were restricting her activities.

"She decided the present world was less and less what she liked, which included everything from people not being polite to an obsession with people acquiring ‘stuff’.

“She did not have many ‘normal’ years left. She was a feisty old lady who wanted to go out with a bang, not a whimper.”

Rising numbers of our elderly are using Dignitas when they are not terminally ill, he said. Last May an 83-year-old became the first Brit to end his life there because he had dementia.

Dr Irwin also cited a woman, 99, who was helped by another group. He said: “When you get past 80 your thoughts change about what life is.

“You think ‘why should I be controlled by this man-made law if other European countries are willing to help me?’.”

But opponents warned any rules brought in here to permit assisted dying for the terminally ill would eventually be widened for others, too.

Dr Peter Saunders, of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said: “This case shows that any law allowing assisted suicide for a restricted class of people will be subject to incremental extension.

“Desperate people will push the boundaries, and as a result legal protection for vulnerable people will be weakened.

[annie]

I don't agree with assisted suicide, but I can understand why people would want it
ca99