Art teacher chooses to die in Swiss suicide clinic because she ‘can’t adapt’ to digital age

An 89-year-old retired art teacher from the UK has passed away at Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas after she felt unable to adapt to the modern digital age.

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by Fiona Day |
Published on

Anne, from Sussex, flew to Switzerland with her 54-year-old niece Linda where she passed away after receiving a lethal amount of barbiturate at the controversial clinic.

Anne wrote in her submission to the clinic that she no longer felt able to adapt to the rapidly evolving modern world.

‘Why do so many people spend their lives sitting in front of a computer or television?’ she said. ‘I have never had a television. People are becoming more and more remote. We are becoming robots. It is this lack of humanity.’

‘I find myself swimming against the current, and you can’t do that. If you can’t join them, get off.’

'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.’

Anne passed away at suicide clinic Dignitas
Anne passed away at suicide clinic Dignitas

Anne was also worried about the impact over crowding and pollution was having to the planet.

‘I see everything as cutting corners. All the old-fashioned ways of doings things have gone,’ she wrote.

‘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.’

Dr Michael Irwin from the Society for Old Age Rational Suicide spoke to Anne about her journey to the clinic.

The clinic is next to Lake Zurich in Switzerland where assisted suicide is legal

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

‘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.'

He continued: ‘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’.’

Assisted suicide is currently illegal in the UK but over 200 British citizens have chosen to end their lives at Dignitas.

The law could be set to change if MPs are given a free vote under the Assisted Dying Bill.

The bill has been championed by Lord Falconer and would allow patients to choose to die if they had under 6 months left to live.

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