Ben Dowell
The Observer, Sunday 12 June 2011
Article history
Terry Pratchett says he is poised to sign away his life at the Dignitas clinic
The Discworld author has been sent the consent forms and plans to complete them 'imminently'
Terry Pratchett, the fantasy writer who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2008, said that he had started the formal process that could lead to his assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.
Pratchett, whose film about the subject of assisted suicide is to be shown on BBC2 tomorrow, revealed that he had been sent the consent forms requesting a suicide by the clinic and planned to sign them imminently. "The only thing stopping me [signing them] is that I have made this film and I have a bloody book to finish," he said during a question and answer session following the screening at the Sheffield documentary festival Doc/Fest.
The author said he decided to start the process after making the film Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die, which shows the moment of death of a motor neurone sufferer, millionaire hotel owner Peter Smedley, in the presence of his wife.
The BBC's decision to air the programme has led to growing criticism among anti-euthanasia campaigners who have branded the film "assisted suicide propaganda" and warned broadcasters that they risks giving voice to pro-euthanasia views for the sake of "eye-catching TV". Alistair Thompson, a spokesman for the pressure group Care Not Killing Alliance, said the film was the fifth programme produced by the BBC in three years to be presented by a pro-euthanasia sympathiser.
Other examples include a Panorama documentary fronted by pro-euthanasia MSP Margo Macdonald and last year's Richard Dimbleby Lecture, in which Pratchett called for the introduction of euthanasia tribunals. Thompson said: "This is pro-assisted suicide propaganda loosely dressed up as a documentary. Where is the other side of the argument, where are the incredible things disabled people do?
"The evidence is that the more you portray this, the more suicides you will have. The BBC is funded in a different way to other media and has a responsibility to give a balanced programme."
Pratchett, the creator of the Discworld novels, who was 60 when he was diagnosed three years ago, said his decision to start the formal process did not necessarily mean that he was going to take his own life. He claimed he remained unsure about whether to carry through with his own death, saying that he changes his mind "every two minutes". He added that his wife, who chose not to appear in the film, did not want him to take his own life but that if he did choose to die he would prefer to do so in England and in the sunshine.
Pratchett also revealed that he would not "go to the barricades" for people who wanted to die because they had grown weary of living. It is estimated that 21% of people who die at Dignitas do not have a terminal illness.
Тут
You know, it's very difficult to accept death. It’s even more difficult to accept suicide. But what can you do if you are diagnosed with some terrible disease and there’s no reason to believe that a “cure” is imminent?
Would you choose “assisted death” which is wrongly called now “assisted suicide”?
I read long ago an article about Terry Pratchett who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2007. He does choose assisted death. He describes in that article his battle with Alzheimer's and, you see, that is, undoubtedly, the most well reasoned and mannered argument for assisted death possible. A man of means and intellect facing his imminent end and making the choice.
Godspeed to him.
“From the inside, the disease makes me believe that I am constantly being followed by an invisible moron who moves things, steals things, hides things that I had put down a second before and in general, sometimes causes me to yell with frustration. You see, the disease moves slowly, but you know it’s there. Imagine that you’re in a very, very slow motion car crash. Nothing much seems to be happening. There’s an occasional little bang, a crunch, a screw pops out and spins across the dashboard as if we’re in Apollo 13. But the radio is still playing, the heater is on and it doesn’t seem all that bad, except for the certain knowledge that sooner or later you will be definitely going headfirst through the windscreen.
Let us consider me as a test case. As I have said, I would like to die peacefully with Thomas Tallis on my iPod before the disease takes me over and I hope that will not be for quite some time to come, because if I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice”.