Originally published February 23 2006
Woman leaves home country for legal assisted suicide
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A retired physician struck with a degenerative brain disease recently pleaded with the British government to legalize assisted suicide before taking her own life with the assistance of doctors at a clinic in Switzerland.
A retired physician urged the Government yesterday to make assisted suicide legal as she took her life with the help of doctors at a controversial clinic in Switzerland.
Anne Turner, 66, who was suffering from the incurable brain disease progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), had seen her husband, Jack, die from a closely related degenerative illness four years ago.
Before leaving Britain she wrote more than 100 letters to friends, to arrive after her death, explaining her actions.
At her hotel overlooking the Zurichsee lake in Zurich, she said: "I am just so tired of being dependent on people.
Her decision to commit assisted suicide while only partially disabled will reignite the debate over Britain's laws on assisted dying and euthanasia.
Pro-life campaigners called her death a tragedy that would wrongly suggest to the terminally ill that their lives were intolerable and worthless.
The average life expectancy of a PSP patient is seven years from the onset.
The last years can be spent in a wheelchair or in bed and often tube-fed.
There she died in a flat surrounded by her children, Edward, 39, an accountant, Sophie Pandit, 41, an actress, and Jessica Wharton, 37, a legal executive, after drinking barbiturates.
"She went into a deep coma and her breathing just slowed and by 1.35pm she was pronounced dead.
In an interview last week, Dr Turner said the law should be changed so that terminally ill patients did not have to die before they were ready by being forced to travel abroad while they were still able to do so.
"My children all support my decision, especially as we have all seen the effect of a very similar illness in my husband: his terrible suffering, loss of dignity and his long slow demise.
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