U.K. TV Shows An Assisted Suicide
Producers, network executives and Ewert's widow say the intention of the program, called "Right to Die?," was to bring the debate about assisted suicide into the open. It worked.
Ewert suffered from motor neuron disease, for which there is currently no cure.
Mary Ewert told Sky News, a CBS News partner network, that her husband felt he had the right to end his life on his own terms rather than suffer, and make his loved ones suffer, through what could potentially be a long and uncomfortable demise.
Click here to see Sky News' reporting on the documentary and the reaction to it.
Sky's decision to air the program, including the moment of death, was predictably praised by those who advocate the "die with dignity," but was held up by opponents as an example of the media playing an "unhelpful" and "biased" role in the name of boosting TV ratings.
Here's a story from CBSNews.com on the pre-show debate in the U.K.
The documentary is the creation of Oscar-winning filmmaker John Zaritsky, and has previously aired in Canada. Wednesday night was the first time an assisted suicide had actually been shown in its entirety on British TV.
Mary Ewert told Sky News her husband was always insistent that his moment of death should be shown, saying it was the only way to force people to confront the issue.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown trod carefully around the issue Wednesday during his Prime Minister's Questions on the floor of Parliament.
Hours before the show aired, he made the throw-away comment that the issue of showing an assisted suicide on television must be dealt with "sensitively and without sensationalism."
"I hope broadcasters remember they have a wider duty to the general public," he admonished.
While Brown reiterated his opposition to legalising assisted suicide in Britain, he deferred judgement on televising the act to Britain's independent broadcasting watchdog organization, OFCOM.
Helping people to kill themselves, regardless of their mental or physical condition, is illegal in the U.K. and in all U.S. states apart from Oregon and Washington, but legal under tight controls in Switzerland, where the Dignitas clinic that helped Ewert end his life is located.
Here's a link to Dignitas' Web site, as translated from the original German by Google's automated service (there are some gaps).
The next test of Britain's tolerance for assisted suicide is already playing through the court system here. Debbie Purdy, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, is trying to win legal assurance that her husband won't be criminalized for helping her get to Dignitas if she decides to end her life.
Britain's High Court ruled against her in October, but she is appealing that decision. Here's Sky News' in-depth look at Purdy's case.