The suicide tourist

This documentary addresses the issues of a person's right to die as it follows the story of two couples. In the first, Craig Ewert has been diagnosed with ALS. The film follows his final four days of life before his death, assisted by the organization, Dignitas, in Switzerland. The second tell of a couple, Betty and George Coumbias who wish to die together. George suffers from heart complications, but Mary is a healthy woman who does not want to live without her husband.

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"Suicide tourist"

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"This documentary addresses the issues of a person's right to die as it follows the story of two couples. In the first, Craig Ewert has been diagnosed with ALS. The film follows his final four days of life before his death, assisted by the organization, Dignitas, in Switzerland. The second tell of a couple, Betty and George Coumbias who wish to die together. George suffers from heart complications, but Mary is a healthy woman who does not want to live without her husband."@en
"The controversy about a person's right to die at a time and place of their own choosing has become focused on the Swiss organisation Dignitas, and its founder, civil rights lawyer, Ludwig Minelli. Dignitas, based in Zurich Switzerland, is the only place in the world where a person seeking an assisted suicide can be helped to die, no matter where they are from. For a year, Oscar-winning Canadian director John Zaritsky had exclusive access to Dignitas, and its clients. In The Suicide Tourist, Zaritsky tells two interwoven stories about suicide. In the first, he follows a terminally ill man, 59-year-old American Craig Ewert, through the last four days of his life - preparing to leave his adopted home in England for the last time, then on his journey to Zurich, and into the care of Dignitas, with whose help he will end his life. Dignitas - a kind of travel agency to the afterlife - has made all the arrangements. His death takes place in a rented apartment, where a Dignitas employee prepares a fatal drink. With his wife Mary at his side, Craig swallows the poison, and slips quietly into a final sleep. In Switzerland, the law says only that suicide must not be assisted for personal gain. Ludwig Minelli believes the option of a painless and dignified death is a basic human right, and should be legal for all. The second story in The Suicide Tourist follows Canadian couple George and Betty Coumbias, who test that philosophy, and the Swiss tolerance for a law that some say is giving Zurich a reputation for suicide tourism. George has terminal heart disease, and would like to choose the time of his death with the help of Dignitas; his wife Betty is determined to die with him, even though she is perfectly healthy."
"""I am dying. ... There is no sense in trying to deny that fact," 59-year-old Craig Ewert says of his rapid deterioration just months after being diagnosed with ALS, a motor neuron disorder often referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease. "I'm not tired of living," explains Ewert, a retired computer science professor. "I'm tired of the disease, but I'm not tired of living. And I still enjoy it enough that I'd like to continue. But the thing is that I really can't." Directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker John Zaritsky, The Suicide Tourist is a portrait of Ewert's final days as the Chicago native pursues a physician-assisted suicide in the one place where it's legal for foreigners to come to end their lives: Switzerland. With unique access to Dignitas, the Swiss nonprofit that has helped more than 1,000 people die since 1998, The Suicide Tourist follows Ewert as he debates the morality -- and confronts the reality -- of choosing to die before his disease further ravages his body, and he loses the option to die without unbearable suffering."-- Frontline website."
"Do we have the right to end our lives if life itself becomes unbearable, or we are terminally ill? With unique access to Dignitas, the Swiss non-profit that has helped over one thousand people die, filmmaker John Zaritsky offers a revealing look at a couple facing the most difficult decision of their lives, as one Chicago native makes the trip to Switzerland for what will become the last day of his life."
"Explores the difficult choices made by patients and families of those who commit assisted suicide and documents the assisted suicide of Craig Ewert at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich, Switzerland."
"The controversy about a person's right to die at a time and place of their own choosing has become focused on the Swiss organisation Dignitas, and its founder, civil rights lawyer, Ludwig Minelli. Dignitas, based in Zurich Switzerland, is the only place in the world where a person seeking an assisted suicide can be helped to die, no matter where they are from. For a year, Oscar-winning Canadian director John Zaritsky had exclusive access to Dignitas, and its clients. In The Suicide Tourist, Zaritsky tells two interwoven stories about suicide. In the first, he follows a terminally ill man, 59-year-old American Craig Ewert, through the last four days of his life - preparing to leave his adopted home in England for the last time, then on his journey to Zurich, and into the care of Dignitas, with whose help he will end his life. Dignitas - a kind of travel agency to the afterlife - has made all the arrangements. His death takes place in a rented apartment, where a Dignitas employee prepares a fatal drink."