800 Brits Sign Up for Suicide at Swiss Clinic

By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 1, 2009 1:27 AM CDT
800 Brits Sign Up for Suicide at Swiss Clinic
Ludwig A. Minelli is a founder of Dignitas, a Zurich-based organization dedicated to the cause of "dignified dying."   (AP Photo/Keystone, Gaetan Bally, File)

Some 800 Brits have signed up to commit suicide at a controversial Swiss clinic, reports the Guardian. The terminally ill patients have become members of Dignitas so they can travel to Zurich when the time comes to take a drug overdose. The number of British residents crossing the border for assisted suicide continues to climb, triggering heightened debate in Britain about a nationwide ban on the practice.

"There is clearly a growing demand in this country for a well regulated, legal right for people with terminal illness, who are mentally competent, to end their life if they choose," said a spokeswoman for the British euthanasia advocacy organization Dignity for Dying.
(More suicide stories.)

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