An elderly woman has ended her life at the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland because she was not prepared to adapt to a world in which she felt “technology took precedence over humanity”.
The 89-year-old, who was not terminally ill, said she feared that she faced a choice of either adapting to a world of emails and television, or death.
The retired teacher from Sussex, known only as Anne, complained that modern technology was turning people into “robots”.
Under Dignitas’ rules, people seeking an assisted suicide must convince doctors they are “terminally ill” or suffering illness to such an extent that it will cause “unendurable pain or disability”.
Dr Peter Saunders of Care Not Killing said that the case raises concerns that any such law could end up being extended, so that it did not just cover the terminally ill.
“Desperate people will push the boundaries, and as a result legal protection for vulnerable people will be weakened,”he said.
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