Britain In Shock After Film Showing Man Committing Suicide Is Broadcast On TV

Reality TV has been heavily criticized over the years for its increasing willingness to take things to graphic extremes.

But a show that aired on Wednesday night in the U.K. has brought a new focus to the debate over how far is too far. And it was viewed by millions of people who likely weren’t sure whether they should even be watching it in the first place.

This wasn’t some game show with a million dollar prize. Instead, it was a sombre opus about life – and most especially, death. It involved the televised suicide of a computer scientist from Chicago named Craig Ewert (top left).

The 59-year-old, who suffered from an incurable and degenerative motor neuron disease, had decided to end his life in an assisted suicide at a clinic in Switzerland. But he didn’t want to go out without spreading the word about his ultimate solution to ending his pain.

So he agreed to have his final act be part of a documentary that traced his life and death. His goal: to show that assisted suicide is a humane act that ends needless suffering.

The documentary, originally called the ” Suicide Tourist,” was made by Canadian filmmaker John Zaritsky in 2006. It features Ewert struggling to cope with a disease that has left him feeling like “an empty shell.”

As it follows him on his journey from Britain – where assisted suicide is illegal – to Switzerland, he explains he wanted to have it filmed to ensure authorities reconsidered their stance against the act.

“If I go through with it, I die as I must at some point,” he recounts in the film. “If I don’t go through with it, my choice is essentially to suffer, and to inflict suffering on my family, and then die.”

“I think I can take my bow, and say: Thanks, it’s been fun,” he notes later.

As for the moral aspect of what he’s doing? Ewert is blunt. “Some people might say: “No, suicide is wrong, God has forbidden it. Fine, but you know what? This ventilator is God.”

He also sends an emotional message to his adult son and daughter, hoping they’ll understand why he cut his life short.

“I would hope that this is not a cause of major distress to those who love me,” he indicates through a voice activated computer, having lost the power of speech. “This is a journey I must make.”

In the final scene, Ewert is seen lying in bed, wearing a ventilator. As the documentary nears its end, and with his wife by his side and Beethoven’s ninth symphony playing in the background, the subject takes some pills, asks for a glass of apple juice and struggles to swallow the bitter barbiturates.

His wife of 37 years is seen holding his hand as his life slips away. “Have a safe journey,” she tells him through tears. “See you sometime.”

He uses his teeth to turn off his ventilator and in front of the unblinking eye of the camera, he dies on screen.

The Oscar-winning documentary has been shown on TV in Canada before to little reaction. But it stirred up a hornet’s nest of controversy in England about reality television finally going too far.

Many religious groups are condemning the concept of taking one’s own life and others are shocked that it was allowed to air at all.

The debate has been so great it has even come up in the British Parliament, where the opposition has been demanding to know why Prime Minister Gordon Brown didn’t step in to stop it from being shown.

The P.M. claims the federal watchdog in the country will be reviewing whether the show should have aired.

Zaritsky has explained it would not have been honest to the film’s mission if he hadn’t shown its true ending. But the program, aired on a normally little watched cable channel, appears to have had the effect Ewert was hoping for.

Opinion polls now say that 80 per cent of the British public believes assisted suicide should be allowed in the country if there’s no chance a patient will recover and if it will stop someone from suffering.

Photo courtesy Sky Real Lives