News emerged this week of a woman, Maureen Slough, who recently travelled from Ireland to Switzerland to end her life through assisted suicide. Her family only learned of her death afterwards, leaving them devastated. The case further reveals the existence in Switzerland of what is sometimes called ‘suicide tourism’ whereby people travel there to avail of the country’s extremely permissive assisted suicide regime.
Maureen Slough is not the only person who has travelled out to Switzerland from Ireland to avail of the law there. According to pro-assisted suicide campaigner, Tom Curran, eight Irish people went to the same clinic as Ms Slough, Pegasos, in 2023 alone.
Unfortunately, it is not surprising that Maureen’s family were not told in advance as assisted suicide clinics are not legally obligated to do so. The decision is treated as a private matter between the individual and the providers.
Her daugther, Megan Royal, was only informed by Pegasos of the death of her mother via WhatsApp afterwards [1].
Ms Slough was not terminally ill, although in recent years, she had faced chronic pain, bereavements, and two suicide attempts, according to her daughter.
With Pegasos, any adult who has full mental capacity and is free from coercion is eligible for assisted suicide. They don’t even have to be sick. If eligible, the person self-administers a lethal substance provided to them by the clinic.
This regime [2] is as permissive as it gets. It is effectively assisted suicide-on-demand.
Last year [3], commenting on the report of the Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying, a spokesperson for the clinic said: “At Pegasos, we believe that adults capable of judgement should be allowed to exercise their right to a self-determined, dignified death. We hope that the social and individual acceptance of assisted dying, also in foreign countries, might improve in the future, so that people from abroad needn’t travel to Switzerland.”
The ultra-permissive Swiss model was defended by Tom Curran at the hearings of the Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying [4] two years ago. Curran is a director of Exit International [5], which favours an ultra-permissive assisted suicide regime.
The Swiss assisted-suicide clinic, Dignitas, currently counts 123 members from Ireland [6] and it says it has helped at least 13 Irish citizens [7] to kill themselves since 1998.
It is worth noting that in 2021 [8] Tom Curran supported the “right” of a healthy woman to access assisted suicide in Switzerland together with her ill husband.
If assisted suicide ever becomes legal here, there is no reason to think family would be informed before a member killed themselves via the procedure. This reflects the principle of bodily autonomy: the idea that individuals have the ultimate right to decide what to do with their own lives, regardless of consequences.
In such a framework, families would have no legal say in the decision of a member to end their lives by assisted suicide. Supporters see this as a safeguard against interference in a deeply personal choice; critics argue it can isolate the person who wishes to die and leave loved ones blindsided. In some cases, families might even have a vested interest, financial or otherwise, in approving, or at least not opposing, the death of a relative.
The Swiss regime is not one to emulate. It should be deplored.
PS.
In 2023, we covered a similar case of a pro-euthanasia activist who helped an Irish man struggling with mental health problems to access assisted suicide in Switzerland without the knowledge of the man’s family. You can read more here [9].