14 DAY TRIAL // An 89-year-old woman from Sussex, England, took her life at a Swiss assisted suicide clinic because she couldn't keep up with technology and the digital age.
Retired art teacher Anne, who asked to be referred to only by her first name, complained that technology deteriorated human relationships and turned people into robots, so she decided to end her own life rather than adapt to modern world.
“People are becoming more and more remote … We are becoming robots. It is this lack of humanity,” she reportedly said in an interview days before her death.
According to Daily Mail, the woman, who worked as an engineer with the Royal Navy, was also worried about the damage caused by overcrowding and pollution to our planet.
Anne was neither terminally ill nor seriously handicapped when she died, but explained that she had enough of “swimming against the current.” In her application to Dignitas euthanasia clinic in Switzerland, she described her life as “full, with so many adventures and tremendous independence.”
However, in recent years, she became frustrated at the lack of proper human interaction due to people’s increased use of computers, emails, television and other modern technology. Moreover, she feared that a further deterioration of her already ill-health could send her to a nursing home.
Another thing that bothered her was the fact that supermarket shelves were stacked with ready-made meals, and that all the traditional ways of doing things had disappeared.
“They say adapt or die. At my age, I feel that I can’t adapt, because the new age is not an age that I grew up to understand,” Anne said. “I see everything as cutting corners. All the old-fashioned ways of doing things have gone,” she added.
Michael Irwin, a retired doctor and founder of the Society for Old Age Rational Suicide, helped Anne with her application to Dignitas and said that her only regret was that she had to travel abroad to end her life.
Anne killed herself on March 27 by taking a lethal dose of barbiturates at the Swiss clinic. Her case has reignited the debate about assisted suicide in Britain, where it is currently considered a criminal offense, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
However, a new bill on assisted suicide, the Assisted Dying Bill put forward by Lord Falconer, would not legalize the act for people who are not dying. If approved, the new legislation would allow doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs to adult patients with fewer than six months to live.