“People” magazine is carrying the depressing story of Maureen Slough, (above), an Irish woman, 58, who told her family she was going on vacation to Lithuania with a friend. However, she confided to two friends that she would really be traveling alone to Switzerland, where a non-profit there would help her to kill herself.
And that’s what she did, after paying the organization, Pegasos, in Liestal, Switzerland, £15,000 (a bit more than 20,000 U.S. dollars) for the assistance.
A brief digression: Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland and had been since 1942. It isn’t euthanasia which is illegal but often isn’t punished here in the U.S. and elsewhere: the patients kill themselves with prescribed drugs, and doctors aren’t involved beyond writing a legal prescription. (Writing a prescription for a drug that the doctor knows the patient will use to commit suicide is, in my view, a violation of medical ethics.)
Maureen’s adult daughter received a text message on WhatsApp from Pegasos informing her that her mother had died. That was nice of them. “What was worse was not only did I get the text on WhatsApp, they had advised me that her ashes would be posted to me in 6-8 weeks,” she said. “In that very moment, because I was alone, I just sat there with the baby and cried… I just felt like my world ended.”
Later, Slough’s ashes arrived.
It sounds as if Slough was suffering from clinical depression. Pegasos did not respond to “People’s” request for comment, but the nonprofit told the Irish Independent that Slough went through an extensive assessment prior to her death, including an “independent” psychiatric evaluation confirming that she was of sound mind, or sound enough mind to pretend to be traveling to Lithuania when she was really going to take $20,000 of the family’s money to pay an outfit in Switzerland to help her die.
Pegasos says Maureen informed them of her history and stated repeatedly that she was suffering with “unbearable chronic pain,” presumably psychic in nature. Pegasos also claims that they received a letter from Slough’s daughter stating that she accepted her mother’s decision to end her life, but the daughters says she never wrote such a letter, and that she is sure that her mother sent it.
She questions Pegasos’ verification process, which is indeed questionable. Obviously an organization that stands to make a cool $20,000 if a customer decides to kill herself is not able to make an “objective assessment” regarding the wisdom of that decision. What’s Swiss for “conflict of interest”?
“People are saying to me, ‘At least you didn’t find her in a bad way over here.’ Well, it was just as bad to me,” the daughter says now. Welcome to EA Rationlization #22, “There are worse things.” Slough can be excused for her lie, because she was suffering from a mental illness. Pegasos, however, is in the business of aiding and abetting a destructive act that is certain to devastate innocent family members and others.
Another tangential thought: Which would you prefer, to find your mother hanging in the bathroom, or to get a message that she had lied to you and gone off to Switzerland to die, taking $20,000 in the bargain?
And many politicians and American citizens want the United States to be more like Switzerland. A national culture that allows and approves of an organization like Pegasos is seriously flawed.
Slough’s story seems not to be unique. Here is another instance of Pegasos facilitating a suicide by keeping a family in the dark.
Three times, I have become aware that someone I knew was on the verge of killing themselves, and each time I took steps to stop them. Two of those people are still alive today. Funny, it never occurred to me to ask them to pay $20,000 so I would help them do it.
Ethics Alarms 
If I were considering doing myself in, the fact that these folks wanted 20 grand to assist me in doing it would snap me right out of it. BTW, Switzerland uses three languages: French, Italian, and German, so you can plug into each of those.
I almost got there last year, mostly due to an impossible situation at work with no apparent way out and no relief in sight or even really under consideration. Thankfully, I was still sane enough to call my doctor, who got me out of this mess. I was thinking of taking a mental health leave but decided to change jobs instead. I had that luxury, because other lawyers were looking to recruit me. Many don’t, but even so, taking the final way out is selfish because of the pain you cause others.
Glad you’re still with us, Steve!
Grateful you made it through the dark times and thank you for sharing the experience.
You never know when someone else needs to hear that if you ask for help and hang in there, life usually does get better (and yeah, maybe worse again, and then better again, it seems to be part of the ride).
Your comments reminded me of a someone I met at church many decades ago, who didn’t have children and had no surviving family members.
I asked her why she joined. What she told me is that a colleague of hers had recently chosen to exit by suicide, and she and other colleagues at work realized they had no idea he was struggling — it wasn’t a workplace where people shared their feelings (most aren’t!).
She said she wanted to be in a community where actually she would have someone she could talk to if she was ever going through a dark night of the soul, and maybe also have a chance to listen to some else who was suffering, and just needed someone to care, to be present, and to listen.
She concluded by saying, whatever happens to me, I want to have the kind of ties that mean people will come to my funeral and miss me when I’m gone, and I will do the same for them.
I read the story from the link and you were tame in your criticism of the organization.
I have to ask though, what does this organization do to warrant a 20 grand fee in only two days? It seem to me that one could easily commit a murder and have these practitioners call it assisted suicide for a fee based on their level of concern for life.
How are doctors not involved, if drugs are prescribed?
Good catch. The doctors are involved to that extent, but it’s the “patient” who does the killing. Is a doctor involved when a patient overdoses on a legally prescribed medication?
On another issue; it is amazing how often commenters quote a line from a post that contains a typo….
“Be more like the UK!” – Be charged for posting opinions on the internet, submit to home inspections for television antennea and wifi devices if you don’t pay an annual TV license.
“Be more like Switzerland!” – Admittedly the least evil if they have mandatory firearm laws, but they have organizations like this helping people kill themselves.
“Be more like Canada!” – Don’t maintain sufficient health resources for the services you charge your citizens through taxes. Sorry – if you have government run health that you charge to everyone, then services must always be rendered within a month, or more timely if necessary.
“Be more like Australia!” – Like the UK, internet policing, but also covid lockdown camps.
“Be more like China!” – We know the failings of China – but I wonder if people only hold them up as an example because of the nice things they’ve built? Is this just rooted in jealousy? Like – you all know we could have nice things if we treated the least among us like throwaway objects.
I don’t understand how some people can applaud such an organization existing while, at the same time, insisting on the existence of suicide prevention hotlines.
My dad told me that a person determined to kill himself will find a way to do it. He knew that personally because his father was a paranoid schizophrenic who had tried committing suicide in the past, had been committed to a hospital at least once and didn’t always take the medication he was prescribed. He thought his coworkers were spying on him through wires placed everywhere.
He finally succeeded in ending his life while the family was at church. My grandmother sensed something was wrong and called a neighbor to ask him to check on my grandfather. The neighbor found him hanging in the garage.
My mom told me they all came back to the house and my 10-year old uncle ran out and threw his arms around her. He blamed himself because he had wanted to stay home and his dad told him to go to church with the others. My poor uncle, being just a kid, believed that it wouldn’t have happened if he’d stayed home with his dad.
Killing yourself doesn’t end the pain, it just transfers the pain to others.
AMG wrote: Killing yourself doesn’t end the pain, it just transfers the pain to others.
Amen to that. After I lost one brother to suicide and a second to an accident, I informed the remaining siblings that they were forbidden to die until our mother passes. Losing two children in one lifetime is bad enough; suicide adds a whole other layer of difficult-to-process emotions….
Killing yourself doesn’t end the pain, it just transfers the pain to others.
This is so true. I knew a person who killed himself and it left his family and friends bereft and confused. Additionally, they inevitably discovered why he did it, and that added pain and guilt because they had no idea of it, and when they did find out, it changed how they thought of him. That’s a lot to add to grief for someone you loved.