The Right to Live and Die

In December 2008, at prime TV-time, a camera team accompanied the fatally ill Craig Ewert during his act of suicide. Members of the anti-euthanasia movement “Care not Killing” were not the only ones who reacted with indignation at this. They say the only purpose of the film was to improve quota and that it was a cynical and barbarian act of inhumanity by reality TV. Moreover, in their opinion it is a glorification of suicide. The speaker of Mediawatch UK, John Beyer, also said that probably the moment of death is not a matter for TV at all and that this topic should not be treated like entertainment.
As always, the widow still sees that differently. She let it be known that her husband, when he let himself be filmed during his last moments, wanted to “face the end of life honestly”. (Die Welt, December, 11, 2008) “If death is private and concealed, people repress their fear of it. My husband was a teacher, and in a way he made this film as a teacher”.
Public suicide has a long tradition. The most famous example in western cultural history is the suicide of Socrates in the year 399 before Christ. He was forced by court of law to drink the cup filled with hemlock. He consciously talked to his friends about every single moment during which the poison slowly affected his body, and the friends wrote down what he said. More effective than any TV program, the world has remembered this suicide at the worst of all TV-times for more than a thousand years. However, we never heard indignation at it. Rather, to the moralizing consciousness, this act of suicide by Socrates is one of unrivalled courageousness by a person who set moral standards accepting the verdict of the court of law in Athens. Because his situation was nowhere near as desperate as the illness of Craig Ewert in Great Britain.
Socrates could have bought his freedom. His friends had offered to provide the necessary money. His situation was not desperate. He could easily have lived in perfect health for another dozen years or more. But with his autonomous decision, Socrates wanted to commit suicide as an invitation for all autonomous persons. By doing so, he wanted to point towards himself and the mortality of humans, along with their ignorance of moral issues in a more publicly effective manner than any TV program so far.
The witnesses of Socrates’ suicide documented every moment of his demise. In not commenting his deed with moralizing accusations, they showed respect towards the friend and the corpse. Why not give a similar signal to Mister Craig Ewert and his widow? It is not the suicide of Craig Ewerts that shows a tendency towards barbaric human attitudes but the accusations he is subjected to.
KJG