Swiss assisted suicide leader dies while climbing Mount Fuji

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Mount Fuji Japan

Bernhard Sutter, who was the leader of the  Exit assisted suicide/euthanasia group recently died in Japan while climbing Mount Fuji

Sutter was a colleague of Philip Nitschke, the death activist who developed the Exit Bag and the Sarco Pod as well as promoted suicide substances on the internet.

Elizabeth Beattie reported on July 23, 2026 for The Japan Times that:

The managing director of one of Switzerland’s most prominent euthanasia firms died while climbing Mount Fuji during a family vacation.

Bernhard Sutter, 58, collapsed while ascending Japan’s tallest mountain with his son via the Fujinomiya route – the shortest, most direct way up the mountain. At around 3,010 meters above sea level, he felt unwell and stopped at a mountain hut, where he lost consciousness and stopped breathing.

The Japan Times reported that Sutter was involved with assisted suicide since 2007.

Sutter, who lived in Zurich with his family, had since 2015 worked as the managing director of the largest assisted dying firm in Switzerland, Exit. He joined the firm in 2007.

Philip Nitschke, the director of Exit International and the developer of suicide devices, such as the Sarco pod and the Exit bag, offered condolences to Sutter's wife and family stating that he had known Bernhard for more than 15 years and that Sutter was instrumental in launching the German edition of Nitschke's suicide instructions Handbook in 2011.

I personally remember meeting Sutter many years ago in Switzerland when I attended a euthanasia conference organized by World Federation of Right to Die Societies.

EPC offers condolences to the family and friends of Bernhard Sutter, but we also mourn the many people who died with the assistance of Sutter and his staff. Many people have been abandoned to death under the guise of compassion.

Suicide Clinic Helping Grieving Mother Die Promotes Death-on-Demand

This article was published by National Review online on April 23, 2026.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

A grieving mother who is in good health has been accepted for termination by a Swiss suicide clinic. From the New York Post story:

A physically healthy British woman heartbroken over the death of her only son is heading to Switzerland to end her own life at an assisted suicide clinic.

Wendy Duffy, 56, attempted to take her own life after her son died four years ago — but is soon bound for Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal, after her application was accepted by a clinic, according to the London Times.

Duffy, a former care worker from the West Midlands, told the Daily Mail that she paid Pegasos, a Swiss assisted-dying nonprofit organization, $13,500 to euthanize herself under its care, saying suicide is the only way her “spirit can be free.”

Thirteen grand! A lot of money is being made by Swiss suicide clinics accommodating the death desires of despairing people.

Suicide is becoming romanticized:

She’s already chosen what she will wear on her deathbed and told the Daily Mail that Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With A Smile” will be playing as she passes on. Once she’s dead, she’s requested that all the belongings she brought with her be donated.

The consequences of legalizing assisted suicide are finally becoming unequivocal. We follow roads where they lead. Once we declare that facilitated death is an acceptable answer to suffering, there is no way to limit the causes of suffering that qualify one to be made dead. If it’s okay for a cancer patient, why not also a grieving mother, the owner of a business that collapsed, a bored elderly person “tired of life,” or someone struggling with mental illness?

This is why euthanasia laws always expand over time. Indeed, after decades of the promotion of “death with dignity,” we are becoming desensitized to the carnage. We are well on the way to determining that assisted suicide is a fundamental human right — as courts in Germany and Estonia have already ruled.

Can we finally agree that the issue is ultimately about whether we want to empower a death-on-demand culture? If that is what we want, at least be honest about it. If not, it seems to me the only defense is to refuse assisted-suicide legalization, regardless of the cause. Otherwise, institutionalized suicide’s triumph is only a matter of time.

Lucerne Switzerland will expand assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Lucerne Switzerland

More bad news from Switzerland.

Swissinfo news reported that assisted suicide, which is currently done in assisted suicide clinics in Switzerland, will be soon done in hospitals and retirement homes in the Swiss Canton of Lucerne.

The Swissinfo article states that the proposal to extend assisted suicide to hospitals and retirement homes was introduced by Sara Muff from the centre-left Social Democratic Party and passed by 81 votes to 27. 

This is a significant change in Swiss assisted suicide policy and will likely expand the number of assisted suicide deaths by normalizing assisted suicide as a medical act

On March 3, 2026; I reported that the Swiss Exit suicide group 2025 death data indicated a 15% increase from 2024. Exit is only one of the assisted suicide groups in Switzerland.

On February 2, 2026; I reported that Zurich Switzerland will require every care home to provide assisted suicide.

Doctors should never be given the right in law to be directly involved with killing their patients. This is a dangerous policy that leads to the devaluation of human life and the normalization of suicide.

Swiss assisted suicide for people who are not dying.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Swiss Exit suicide group published their 2025 death data indicating a 15% increase from 2024. An article published by Swissinfo on March 2, 2026 stated:

In 2025, 1,421 people made use of Exit Switzerland's services in the German and Italian-speaking parts of the country. This is higher than in 2024, when 1,235 cases of assisted suicide were registered.

The article continued:

As has been the case for many years, more women (818) than men (603) used Exit to end their lives.

There was also a significant increase in the number of assisted suicide deaths of people who are not dying. Swissinfo reported:

According to its annual report, 32% of people who resorted to assisted suicide had terminal cancer, which corresponds to 461 cases. There is also a significant number of elderly people with multiple disorders (polymorbidity) who opted for an assisted death: last year there were 326 cases (23% of the total), compared to 205 in 2024.

Polymorbidity refers to people who are not dying but are approved for assisted suicide based on multiple health concerns. For instance, a sore back and chronic depression.

According to the data there were 326 (23%) who were poisoned to death for polymorbidity in 2025 and 205 (less than 17%) in 2024.

It is concerning that almost 58% (818) of the Exit assisted suicide deaths are women but when you consider the massive increase in deaths of people based on polymorbidity then one must ask if Exit has a misogynistic attitude?

Remember, Exit is only one of the assisted suicide groups in Switzerland.

More information on Switzerland's assisted suicide law:

• Zurich Switzerland will require every care home provide assisted suicide (Read).
• Swiss suicide clinic under fire after deaths without a medical condition (Read).
• Joint elder suicide in Switzerland to avoid Widowhood (Read).
• Irish woman learns of mother's assisted suicide death through What's App (Read).
• Suicide pushers celebrate elder suicides in Swiss Death clinics (Read).
• Elder suicide in Switzerland has quadrupled in 25 years (Read).
  

Zurich Switzerland will require every care home provide assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Swissinfo.ch reported on February 2, 2026 that the Swiss Canton of Zurich is in favour of requiring assisted suicide in all hospitals and retirement homes but not in psychiatric facilities and prisons.

The Swissinfo article reported:

The cantonal government is generally in favour of assisted suicide in all retirement and nursing homes. It has drawn up a corresponding counter-proposal to the initiative “Self-determination at the end of life in retirement and nursing homes too”. This would mean that all homes would have to tolerate assisted suicide in the future.

This proposal, which requires every care home to provide assisted suicide, does not extend to psychiatric facilities and prisons. The article further explains:

The popular initiative challenges a cantonal decision in October 2022 that not all care homes should allow assisted suicide on their premises, but only those with a service mandate from a municipality. This considers religious care homes, that often reject euthanasia.

This news article is essentially stating that the new policy ordering all retirement homes to provide assisted suicide only differs from the previous policy by the fact that it requires religious care homes to also permit assisted suicide.

What begins as an option for people who are seeking assisted suicide becomes an obligation to provide assisted suicide, even for people and groups who oppose killing.

Swiss Assisted Suicide Clinic Founder Died By Assisted Suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Minelli outside Dignitas

Emily Crane reported for the New York Post that Ludwig Minelli, the founder of the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland died by assisted suicide on November 29, 2025.

Minelli (93), was first a journalist and then a "human rights lawyer." Minelli had originally been an advisor to the Exit assisted suicide group but left Exit and founded Dignitas in 1998 because he wanted to be more strident.

Crane reported that:

Dignitas, which says it has strict guidelines for accepting candidates, has helped roughly 4,000 people in Switzerland and across the world end their lives, according to the group.

Lake Zurich urns.

Minelli was controversial for many reasons. Wikipedia reported that:

In a 2010 interview with The Atlantic magazine, Minelli admitted to depositing cremation urns containing the ashes of Dignitas members at Lake Zurich. A 2018 court case against Minelli focused on the circumstances surrounding the death of a woman who had bequeathed Dignitas 100,000 Swiss francs in her will. The organization had found the woman a fourth doctor who would prescribe drugs for assisted suicide after three doctors previously declined her request and the case accused him of profiteering from his clients.

Soraya Wernli

Soraya Wernli, a former employee of Dignitas, was featured in a Daily Mail article in February 2009 accusing Minelli of being obsessed with profit and not with dignity. Wernli claimed, in the Daily Mail article that:

‘just a few days into the job, he (Minelli) asked me to sort through the stuff in these plastic bin liners clogging the stairs.’ Minelli told her to ‘empty the sacks onto a long table ... and sort through everything.

In the sacks Wernli found - Mobile phones, handbags, ladies’ tights, shoes, spectacles, money, purses, wallets, jewels, and more.

Minelli had his “patients” sign forms saying the possessions were now the property of Dignitas. He then sold everything to pawn shops and second-hand shops.

Wernli, who was a nurse and a former care worker for elderly people worked for the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic in Zurich for 2½ years. During that time she came to believe that Dignitas was less about ethical euthanasia for the terminally ill and more of a money-making machine for Minelli.

The interview in The Atlantic Magazine in February 2010 also featured Soraya Wernli, who accused Minelli of ethical and financial improprieties and a lack of concern for vulnerable people.

More Lake Zurich urns

Minelli confirmed in The Atlantic interview that we was dumping the remains of people who died by assisted suicide in Lake Zurich. The article stated:

Minelli said he stores the urns until he has enough of them to load into his car. He then drives, usually at night, to a quiet spot on Lake Zurich, and tosses the remains into the water. Minelli insists that these burials are harmless but last year he was warned by Zurich’s water authority after they received complaints of human bone fragments washing up on shore.

BBC reporter, Imogen Foulkes published an investigative report on July 2, 2010 into Minelli and Dignitas. Foulkes reported:

Urns in Lake Zurich

The discovery of dozens of urns containing human ashes in Lake Zurich has served to focus attention once again on just what exactly assisted suicide groups are allowed to do.

It remains unclear who put the urns into the lake but there have been claims that Dignitas may have been involved: all the urns bore the label of the crematorium used by the organisation.

One German woman has come forward to say her stepmother's ashes were put in the lake by Dignitas, despite her wish to be buried next to her husband.

Foulkes commented on the Dignitas finances:

Dignitas has helped more than 1,000 people die in the past 12 years, (July 2010 report) many of them foreigners who come to Switzerland precisely because their own countries do not permit assisted suicide, Mr Minelli explained.

Each individual pays an initial membership fee, typically around $200 (£133), followed by annual membership fees of $80 (£53). Further fees for the consultation and the assisted suicide itself run to around $7,000 (£4,700).

When further asked about finances Mr Minelli refused to discuss the organisation's finances. Minelli stated:

"This is a private organisation," he explained. "Only the active members have a right to know the facts, and the public has no right at all. We are not working with public money, so there is no reason for us to answer questions."

Pietro D'Amico

In June 2013 I published an article about Pietro D’Amico, a 62-year-old magistrate from Calabria in Southern Italy, in who died by assisted suicide in April, 2013 after D'Amico received a wrong diagnosis. An article published in Switzerland's The Local, stated:

The father-of-one took the decision after a wrong diagnosis from Italian and Swiss doctors, his family's lawyer Michele Roccisano told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

An autopsy carried out by the University of Basel’s Institute of Forensic Medicine found that D’Amico was not suffering from a life-threatening illness at the time of his death.

Roccisano has called on the Italian and Swiss authorities to examine D’Amico’s medical records to determine what went wrong.

In July 2013, a Swiss regional court found Dr. Philippe Freiburghaus “crossed the line” by assisting a suicide without obtaining a diagnosis.

On April 23, 2014, Dr Freiburghaus was acquitted for assisting a suicide without a diagnosis. The reasons for the acquittal were not made public.

Oriella Cazzanello

In February, 2014 the Daily Mail reported on Oriella Cazzanello, 85, who travelled to the assisted suicide clinic in Basel, Switzerland, where she paid €10,000 for an assisted suicide because she was unhappy about losing her looks. The article stated:

Cazzanello, who was in good mental and physical health, left her home in Arzignano, near Vicenza in northern Italy, without telling her relatives where she was going.

Her family, who had reported her to the police as missing, only learned of her death after they received her ashes and death certificate from the clinic.

Coffin leaving Dignitas

In 2017 Swissinfo.ch reported that the Swiss high court upheld the requirement that Dignitas must dispose all remains in cemeteries. Swissinfo.ch reported:

The grisly find in 2010 prompted the local authorities to draft new regulations five years later that outlawed the professional disposal of human remains in the canton. Dignitas fought the order, arguing that it represented an unfair restriction of trade. But both the Administrative Court and now the Supreme Court have sided with the canton.

The discovery of 67 urns in Lake Zurich, near to a Dignitas clinic, made international headlines seven years ago. The human remains were found by divers from the lake rescue service who were looking for a missing sunshade. 

A former Dignitas employee told the media that it was common to dump urns in the lake and estimated there to be around 300 in the watery grave. Dignitas denied the claims and Zurich prosecutors dropped a criminal probe after being unable to prove who had put the urns in the lake.

In May 2018 Minelli was charged with profiteering. 

Dignitas

There have been many controversial stories and deaths related to the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic. Dignitas claims to have assisted the suicides of more than 4000 people with the majority being "suicide tourists."

I will remembered Minelli as a serial killer, who primarily killed people with disabilities. Minelli took money from people with a death wish and killed them. He wasn't concerned about compassion, he was concerned with profit and killing.

Swiss Suicide Clinic Under Fire After Deaths Without Medical A Condition

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Article: Suicide clinics have many controversial deaths (Link).

Judith Hamilton, Alastair's mother.

Yahoo news reported the an article in People Magazine states that families of people who died at a Swiss suicide clinic are saying that their loved ones, who died, did not have a medical condition.

The article reports that Judith Hamilton, whose son died at the Pegasos suicide clinic stated that:

"It's like a business. If you have enough money, they offer you a service,”

The article reports on the death of Alistair Hamilton:

One notable case that received backlash involved Alastair Hamilton, a 47-year-old chemistry teacher with no serious or terminal illness. He traveled from London to end his life with Pegasos while his family believed he was going on a weekend vacation to Paris.

"He hugged me and said, 'I love you, Mum.' I didn't know it was his goodbye," his mother, Judith Hamilton, told RTS.

When Alastair stopped answering his phone and failed to return home, Judith reported him missing. She said she eventually found bank records that showed her son paid 12,000 Swiss francs (about $15,000) to Pegasos.

"It's like a business,” Judith claimed. “If you have enough money, they offer you a service.”

Pegasos was founded in 2019 and is available to adults over 18 who are of “sound mind” and have paid a fee. They offer assisted suicide “regardless of state of health,” which differs from other organizations that require patients to be terminally ill to end their lives.

To add to the grief, when Pegasus acknowledged Alistair's death they informed the family that his ashes were being sent in the mail. The article states:

Alastair’s brother Bradley told the outlet that they repeatedly emailed Pegasos after seeing the bank records but did not get a response. He alleged they were finally able to get a response from the clinic after involving the police and British embassy. At that point, Pegasos reportedly confirmed Alastair’s death and shared that his ashes would be sent to them in the mail.

A ITV news show found that Alastair admitted to Pegasus that he did not have a known medical condition but they assisted his suicide anyway:

Limited to 300 word answers, Alastair told them that his undiagnosed condition was causing him "pain, fatigue and discomfort" which had "devastated my life".

However, he admitted that "there is no current, definitive medical explanation" for his illness and that his family did not know he had decided to take his own life.

Despite that, Pegasos accepted his application and within several days of arriving in Switzerland he was helped to die.

Pegasos is not different than the other Swiss assisted suicide groups, they only appear more controversial because their business model is foreign suicides. Other Swiss suicide clinics, such as EXIT and Dignitas, that also focuses on foreign suicides, are also willing to kill people who are not dying.

The problem is assisted suicide. Allowing suicide businesses creates a profit for killing.

More articles:

• Euthanasia activist, Sean Davison arrested in death of a 79-year-old woman (Link). 
• A mother's warning about her son's death by assisted suicide in Switzerland (Link).

George Clooney, Annette Bening to star in Pro-Assisted-Suicide movie

This article was published by National Review online on October 17, 2025.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

Two A-List Hollywood actors will star in a pro-assisted-suicide movie. From the Hollywood Reporter story:

George Clooney and Annette Bening will star in In Love, an adaptation of Amy Bloom’s New York Times best-selling memoir In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss that is to be directed by Paul Weitz. . . .

With In Love, Bloom wrote about how her she slowly lost her husband to Alzheimer’s, how the two made the decision to travel to Switzerland to end his life, and the struggle to move forward as a widow. The book was an affirmation of love and the power of relationships. It was also named TIME Magazine’s No. 1 best nonfiction book and included on their list of 100 must-read books.

Of course! To Big Time Hollywood, adjacent glitterati, and much of the mainstream media, truly loving someone with Alzheimer’s means being willing to help them become dead rather than caring for them as long as they live.

This is almost trite. How many pro-euthanasia movies/TV episodes have there been? It’s hard to keep count. How many anti-assisted-suicide/pro-care projects? Honestly, I can’t think of one even though there are plenty of dramatic stories illustrating the abuses and dangers just waiting to be told.

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., founder of the American Spectator magazine, coined a term kulturesmog, meaning “ideas that are incompatible with traditional American social, cultural, and economic ideals.” That term sure seems apt here.

Joint Elder Assisted Suicide in Switzerland to Avoid Widowhood

This article was published by National Review on September 26, 2025.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

Once we decide that killing is an acceptable answer to suffering, the kind of suffering that qualifies us to be made dead continually expands. Now, an elderly British couple have committed joint assisted suicide at a Swiss termination clinic to avoid future widowhood and increasing fragility — in other words, to eliminate future suffering. From the Daily Record story:

A devoted couple who “couldn’t bear to be apart” have died together at a Swiss assisted dying clinic after sending emails to their relatives to let them know.

Neither Michael Posner, 97, nor his wife Ruth, 96, had a terminal illness, but had made the decision to die together because they were desperate not to be apart after 75 years of marriage.

This is far from the first such case as euthanasia consciousness has spread throughout the West. I even know of one joint euthanasia homicide in Belgium of an elderly couple who weren’t sick but worried about future widowhood. It was arranged by their son so the children could avoid future caregiving.

There was a time that joint geriatric suicides were considered tragedies. Now they are accepted by many without so much as a raised eyebrow. This is the “compassionate” world, favoring some suicides, that euthanasia advocates are conjuring.

More articles by Wesley Smith (Articles Link).

Pass the test and live. Fail the test and die.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An article that was published by Harper's Magazine that was written by Michel Houellebecq and translated by Robyn Creswell and  under the title: The European Way to Die - On Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide has a very philosophical tone but it also touches on some very poignant arguments.

Houellebecq, who is an agnostic who opposes euthanasia and assisted suicide is essentially writing about the experience with assisted suicide. He philosophically examines several issues but then gets to his topic and states:

An assisted suicide—in which a doctor prescribes a lethal cocktail that the patient self-administers under circumstances of his own choosing—is still a suicide... When I hear that someone I know has committed suicide, what I feel isn’t respect—I don’t want to exaggerate—but neither is it disapproval, nor derision.

Houellebecq continues:

Groups that advocate for the legalization of voluntary euthanasia argue that the procedure is the only humane alternative when the final days or weeks or months of a person’s life will otherwise be filled with unbearable pain. This argument is predicated on two lies, all the more effective for being at once terrifying and rarely articulated. The first has to do with suffering—physical suffering. I may be fortunate, but in all the cases of physical agony I’ve experienced, morphine has been enough to relieve my pain. This wonder drug was discovered at the outset of the nineteenth century and since then much progress has been made; opioid derivatives far more powerful than the original morphine molecule have been synthesized. In our own day—this needs to be said clearly and constantly repeated—physical pain can be vanquished.

The second lie is more insidious. It’s only on television (American television in particular) that a doctor is asked, “How much time do I have left, doc?” and will respond with appropriate gravity, “Three weeks at most.” In real life, doctors are more circumspect. They know, because their basic training is scientific, that the time we have left conforms, like so many things in this world, to a bell curve.

Houellebecq then comments on the film Soylent Green and writes:

American science fiction written during the Fifties and Sixties explored with an impressive, visionary power an array of issues that now feature, or have begun to feature, in our daily lives: the internet, transhumanism, the quest for immortality, and the creation of intelligent robots. For such writers, the idea of euthanasia, conceived as a solution to the economic problems posed by an aging population, was an obvious subject—almost too obvious. The best-known work of the sort is undoubtedly Make Room! Make Room!, largely because of the film version Soylent Green, with an extraordinary performance by Edward G. Robinson.

For Houellebecq, Richard Matheson's book "The Test" is his favorite:

Yet my own favorite is “The Test,” a moving short story by Richard Matheson, curiously never adapted into film, as far as I know, though the cinema has been friendly to Matheson and the story would be easy to adapt. In the world of the story, old people are given regular competency tests that they must pass in order to avoid being put out of their misery. Meanwhile, their descendants sit at home, quietly hoping for the result that will free them from the burden of the aging. Once you have read “The Test,” it seems to me, there is nothing more to say against euthanasia; the story says it all.

I sadly agree that Houellebecq's argument, within the context of Canada's euthanasia law, is correct.

Irish woman learns about mother's assisted suicide death through WhatsApp

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Eliana Nunes reported for the Sun (UK) on August 5, 2025 that An Irish family was left devastated after allegedly receiving a text from a Swiss assisted dying clinic that their mum was dead and her ashes would be sent by post.

As reported in the Sun:

Maureen Slough, a 58-year-old from Cavan, travelled to the Pegasos clinic on July 8 to seek an assisted death - without her family's knowledge - according to the Irish Independent. 

Maureen reportedly told her family that she and a friend were going to Lithuania.

Her partner, Mick Lynch didn't even know about her impending death. The report states: 

"I was actually talking to her that morning and she was full of life,"

"She said after having her breakfast... she was going out to sit in the sun. Maybe she was heading off to that place. I still thought she was coming home."

Maureen and Megan

The report indicated that her daughter, Megan Royal, received a WhatsApp message from the suicide clinic stating that her mother had died while listening to gospel music by Elvis Presley. The report continued:

The family is shocked that the clinic would accept an application for assisted dying from Maureen, who they say had long struggled with mental illness.

She had also attempted suicide a year prior, after the deaths of her two sisters, according to the family.

Adding to their dismay, the family claims the clinic never informed them of her plans.

Friends are reportedly horrified by the clinic's method of returning the ashes via parcel post.

The report indicated that the family found out Maureen had paid a reported £13,000 to the Pegasos Swiss Association to assist her death.

The report also indicated that there is a dispute about communication. Pegasus claims that Megan (Maureen's daughter) sent a letter to Pegasos accepting her mother's death plan and confirmed it by email. Megan stated that the letter and email were fake.

The report stated that: 

Maureen's brother wants the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, along with Swiss authorities, to conduct an investigation.

"I am working on the assumption that my sister created this email and the clinic’s procedures were woefully inadequate in verification," he wrote.

"The Pegasos clinic has faced numerous criticisms in the UK for their practices with British nationals, and the circumstances in which my sister took her life are highly questionable."

Pegasos claims that they carried out an extensive assessment of Maureen's mental health - including an independent psychiatric evaluation. Pegasos also claims that: Maureen told the clinic she was in unbearable and unrelievable chronic pain and that they received supporting medical documentation from her pain-management consultant.

The report concluded with:

Maureen's family's story is not unique.

Other families have also hit out at Pegasos, claiming they were left in the dark about their loved ones’ plans to go through with assisted deaths.

In 2023, Pegasos reportedly vowed to contact a person's relatives beforehand after 47-year-old teacher Alistair Hamilton - who had no diagnosed illness - died, leaving his family shocked.

However, in 2025, the organisation appeared to break this promise.

Anne Canning, a 51-year-old British mum, who was battling depression after the sudden death of her son 19 months prior, ended her life at the clinic, ITV reported.

Previous articles concerning the Pegasos suicide clinic:

• Swiss assisted suicide clinic facing lawsuit and questions concerning foreign suicides (Link). 
• A mother's warning about the death of her son by assisted suicide in Switzerland (Link). 
• Euthanasia activist, Sean Davison, arrested in London England concerning the death of a 79-year-old woman (Link).
• Swiss assisted suicide clinic's many controversial deaths (Link). 
• My husbands death made me more opposed to assisted suicide (Link).
• Swiss study: Legalizing assisted suicide does not lessen the number of common suicides (Link).

Suicide Pushers Celebrate Elderly Suicides in Swiss Death Clinics

This article was published by National Review online on July 14, 2025.

By Wesley J Smith

Geriatric suicides used to be considered a tragedy. But these days, increasingly, they are celebrated — whether Compassion and Choices (formerly, the more honestly named Hemlock Society) teaching elderly people to starve themselves to death (VSED), joint lethal jabs of aged married couples in places like the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada, or suicides facilitated at Swiss death clinics.

These clinics are proud of their toll. One Swiss clinic even “prioritizes people who are elderly but not seriously ill,” while others willingly engage in geriatric assisted suicide of depressed elders if they have other conditions. From the odious Exit International’s newsletter:

“Conscious suicides are different from others,” says Jean-Jacques Bise, Co-President of Exit in French-speaking Switzerland.

The figures from RTS suggest that the two types of suicide could be linked.

In very old people, the statistical curves of the two types of suicide cross at the beginning of the 2010s, an indication that from then on there was a shift from unaccompanied to accompanied suicides.

Exit has been offering its members assisted suicide since 1982.

Since 2014, people suffering from multiple illnesses without imminent danger to their lives have also been able to take advantage of this service, provided they are fully capable of judgement.

“We don’t help people who are tired of life,” emphasises Jean-Jacques Bise from Exit.

Is it possible to make use of Exit in cases of depression?

Yes, says Bise, but if a mentally ill person is helped to die, “then because of the illness, not because of the depression”.

Suicide prevention? What’s that?

This is what we are becoming: Pro–some suicides. What a cultural tragedy.

More articles about Switzerland assisted suicide (Articles Link).

Elder suicide in Switzerland has quadrupled in 25 years.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Swissinfo reported on July 10, 2025 that the elder suicide rate has quadrupled over the past 25 years. The data is upsetting but it should not surprise people considering that society has been telling the elderly that they are better off dead.

It is important to note that the Swiss suicide rates for people under the age of 65 have gone down over the past 25 years while the suicide rate for people from 65 to 84 has increased significantly and the suicide rate for people over the age of 85 has quadrupled.

Swissinfo reported:

Senior citizens were 42 times more likely to take their own lives in 2023 than people in other age groups, according to Swiss public broadcaster, RTS.

And the numbers are increasing: in the past 25 years, the proportion of over 85-year-olds in Switzerland who decide to take their life has quadrupled. Among 65- to 84-year-olds, this proportion has doubled.

In contrast, the suicide rate among the younger population has fallen by around 30% in the past two decades.

The increased suicide rate, in Switzerland, appears to be related to the acceptance of assisted suicide. Swissinfo reported on the question of whether suicide is linked to assisted suicide:

There is controversy among experts as to whether assisted suicides and unassisted suicides can be linked at all.

According to Pierre Vandel, head physician at Lausanne University Hospital, “it is possible to opt for assisted suicide without having suicidal thoughts”. However, he explains that some of his colleagues make no distinction in this respect.

Euthanasia organisations take a different view. “Conscious suicides are different from others,” says Jean-Jacques Bise, Co-President of Exit in French-speaking Switzerland.

The figures from RTS suggest that the two types of suicide could be linked. In very old people, the statistical curves of the two types of suicide cross at the beginning of the 2010s, an indication that from then on there was a shift from unaccompanied to accompanied suicides.

The article examined the differences between men and women. The article states:

The figures also show that there are stark differences between men and women. Until the early 2010s, women took their own lives much less frequently than men.

Since then, the number of assisted suicides has also risen sharply among women, and women almost exclusively end their lives in this way of their own accord. In contrast, there is still a comparatively high proportion of unassisted suicides among men.

“Men express their feelings less than women,” explains psychiatrist Pierre Vandel. That is why it is more difficult for them to recognise suicidal thoughts and help them in time. This explains the tendency of men to take their own lives more often without support.

In America, a similar phenomenon has occurred. Like Switzerland the highest suicide rate in America is among the elderly. Similar to Switzerland, the suicide rate among the elderly was much lower in the past. There is significant proof that the suicide rate in Oregon is directly connected to the acceptance of assisted suicide.

There have been several studies that have examined the connection between suicide, euthanasia and assisted suicide. Most studies suggest that suicide rates increases when assisted suicide and euthanasia are normalized.

More articles on this topic:

• Suicide deaths increasing in America. Elderly Americans now have the highest suicide rate (Link).
• US suicide rates are now highest among the elderly (Link).
• Suicide contagion (Link).
• Legalizing assisted dying can actually increase suicides (Link). 
• Suicide rates in jurisdictions that have legalized assisted suicide are not decreasing (Link).
  

Assisted suicide activist appears to have died by suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Florian Willet with Philip Nitschke

Florian Willet, who was the co-chair of the last-resort suicide organization, reportedly died by suicide last month in Cologne Germany “with the help of a specialised organisation”.

The suicide death of Willet is tragic, but I recognize that Willet was not terminally ill or physically suffering, but rather it was stated that: “Florian’s spirit was broken.” after serving 70 days in jail after being arrested in the "suicide pod" death of a 64-year-old unnamed American woman.

On September 24, 2024 I published an article stating that the Swiss police had made arrests related to the Sarco suicide pod. Willet was one of the participants who was arrested and held in jail in the Sarco suicide pod death, while Swiss police investigated.

The Sarco suicide pod kills a person by releasing nitrogen gas into the pod causing the person to die of asphyxiation. On September 29, 2024 I published an article explaining why the Sarco suicide pod method constitutes torture.

Miriam Kuepper and Elena Salvoni reported for the Daily Mail, on October 28, 2024 that strangulation marks were found on the 64-year-old American woman who died in the Sarco death pod. 

The investigation related to the strangulation marks ended when the strangulation marks were attributed to the jerking of the victims muscles and her arms while she was dying of asphyxiation.

An article by Adam Sage that was published by the Times on June 3, 2025 stated that:

A euthanasia activist who was arrested for providing a suicide pod in which a woman took her own life in Switzerland last year has died after developing a psychotic disorder.

Florian Willet, 47, is thought to have taken his own life. He was a “broken” man after spending 70 days in custody in connection with the death of an American woman in a specially-designed capsule in a Swiss forest, according to The Last Resort, the right-to-die association he jointly chaired.

Sage further explained that:

Swiss prosecutors initially suspected Willet of murder after discovering strangulation marks on the neck of the first user of the capsule — a 64-year-old American suffering from skull base osteomyelitis. He was the only person beside the pod when she died.

Although he was released from detention in December when prosecutors discounted the murder allegation, the investigation has continued into claims that he and other people close to The Last Resort incited the pod user to take their own life.

The Last resort assisted suicide group claimed that Willet was a victim. Sage wrote:

The Last Resort sought to depict Willet as a victim of Swiss justice. A statement from the organisation said: “He knew that he did nothing illegal or wrong, but his belief in the rule of law in Switzerland was in tatters. In the final months of his life, Dr Florian Willet shouldered more than any man should. Florian has now paid the ultimate price — his life — for his compassion.”

Willet's death is tragic but he was not a victim and certainly not a hero. His death underlines the goals of the assisted suicide lobby. He died with the assistance of a "specialised organization" even though he was not terminally ill and was experiencing a treatable condition. The goal of Philip Nitschke and the assisted suicide lobby, as stated by Wesley Smith is:

Death on demand, for any reason, at any time, by anyone — with the possible exception of children — and assisted by whomever for any reason. This is the ultimate destination of the euthanasia movement, whether by design or simple logical consequence.

The Sarco suicide pod was invented by Philip Nitschke, who had lost his medical license in Australia. A 64-year-old American woman died in the Sarco pod in connection to The Last Resort Swiss assisted suicide group that was led by Florian Willett, a former spokesperson for the euthanasia group Dignitas and Fiona Stewart, the wife of Philip Nitschke.

Rush to legalize assisted suicide (UK). Have the vulnerable become expendable?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director,
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Sonia Sodha

Sonia Sodha is an Observer columnist who wrote a challenging article that was published by the Guardian on April 13, 2025. Sodha asks if the rush to legalize assisted suicide has made the vulnerable expendable?

Sodha, explains how dangerous the proposed UK assisted suicide bill, that is sponsored by Kim Leadbeater (MP) is. The article begins by telling two stories of people who died by assisted suicide at a clinic in Switzerland:

Last month, ITV News reported on the case of 51-year-old Anne, who travelled to a Swiss assisted suicide clinic to end her own life after her only son died. The first her family knew of it was when they received the goodbye letters Anne had posted them from Switzerland. It follows another case from 2023, when 47-year-old Alastair Hamilton went to the same Swiss clinic after telling his mother he was going on holiday. He had been suffering from stomach problems but had no diagnosed illness.

Sodha explains that similar stories have been reported in Canada.  She then comments on the reality of what a six month terminal diagnosis means:

...That’s more subjective than it might sound: in Oregon, for example, doctors have interpreted terminal illness to include malnutrition from eating disorders, and the assisted dying bill’s sponsor, Kim Leadbeater, rejected amendments backed by eating disorder charities to prevent this happening here. Having learning difficulties or a mental illness, feeling depressed or suicidal, or alcohol misuse that might impair judgment would not preclude someone from seeking a medically assisted death. There would be no obligation on assisted suicide providers to notify families their relative is about to die, and no route for relatives to raise concerns about coercion.

Sodha explains what the Leadbeater bill will permit:

Do we really want to live in a society in which a depressed 19-year-old diagnosed with terminal cancer can kill himself with medical assistance, and his parents only find out afterwards? Or in which an older woman who is terminally ill can get an assisted death to avoid being a burden on her adult children, with no opportunity for them to tell her that caring for her would be an act of love rather than obligation? These circumstances would be entirely permissible under Leadbeater’s bill. They are the logical extension of treating medical assistance to kill oneself as healthcare, and as facilitating an adult’s right to make autonomous and private choices. 

Sodha is concerned with the speed in which the assisted suicide bill is being pushed. Leadbeater did delay the next debate on the bill by three weeks. Sodha outlines some of the dangerous flaws with the bill:

The judicial safeguard has been eliminated. Instead of judges signing off assisted deaths, this will fall to panels with no investigatory powers, no ability to summon witnesses or to hear evidence under oath, and no obligation to make inquiries beyond hearing from one doctor. External oversight of the system by the chief medical officer has been removed. The NHS can outsource assisted dying to for-profit companies. There is no proper regulatory regime nor any protection for hospices from being financially penalised for not providing assisted dying on their premises. Doctors can proactively suggest assisted dying to under-18s, who can qualify for it from their 18th birthday. These are just some of the problems with the bill. Little wonder that six Labour MPs have written to colleagues calling it “flawed and dangerous”.

Sodha asks how did the UK get here? She points out that some supporters of assisted suicide acknowledge that wrongful deaths will occur. She writes:

There are some intellectually honest proponents of assisted dying who acknowledge that people would suffer wrongful deaths if it were legalised. The brain surgeon Henry Marsh even said in 2017 “if a few grannies get bullied into it, isn’t that a price worth paying for all the people who could die with dignity?”. Grim, though upfront.

Sodha then points out that most of the assisted suicide supporters ignore the real concerns:

But I have watched open-mouthed as some MPs arguing for assisted dying have chosen to ignore what we know about safeguarding to pretend it’s possible to eliminate the risk of people being coerced into killing themselves, through something as cursory as a bit of training for doctors signing it off. Have they not read the same safeguarding reviews that I have, which make clear that even experienced social workers routinely miss cases of domestic abuse? Have they not digested the implications of NHS scandals, such as mid-Staffs, the maternity scandals, and the Tavistock’s clinic for gender-questioning children? Is it arrogance or ineptitude that makes them think they know better than the country’s leading experts on domestic abuse?

Sodha explains that assisted suicide supporters are not only ignoring concerns with the bill but they accuse opponents of the bill as "acting in bad faith". She writes:

They are perceived as bad folk using words like “risk” and “safeguarding” as a foil for some other irrational opposition to something that’s innately good.

Sodha suggests that many of the supporters of assisted suicide do so with a quasi-religious fervour.

Sodha challenges the British Labour government by stating:

It is an unserious, irresponsible way to make law that could lead to vulnerable or suicidal people being prescribed lethal drugs by the state. Labour seems yet to twig what a serious political problem this could be. Does it really want to be known as the party that failed to fix the NHS so that a parent with probably-terminal cancer could access decent end-of-life care, but instead made it possible for them to kill themselves with medical assistance when they were feeling suicidal?

Sodha completes her article by stating the fundamental point:

I don’t want to live in a society that sees people with complications and vulnerabilities as expendable in reducing the suffering of others. It really is as simple as that. And it distresses me immeasurably that there are MPs who cannot see this is precisely what this bill would achieve.

Previous articles about the UK assisted suicide bill:

• British MP who supported assisted suicide is opposing the assisted suicide bill (Link). 
• The UK assisted dying bill gets more dangerous by the day (Link). 
• UK assisted suicide bill is losing support and can be defeated (Link). 
• Follow the money. Members of Scottish parliament accept money from? (Link).
• Scotland's assisted suicide bill is dangerous (Link).