Straight away, she told me she wasn’t going to let the illness progress. She wanted to end this at Dignitas. I was really shocked – firstly about her diagnosis, but also about her immediate decision to die sooner than ‘the end’.
On the same day Marjorie* learned about her mother’s cancer diagnosis, she found out about her decision to leave the UK for Switzerland, where she could legally choose an assisted death. Despite having reservations about this abrupt announcement, Marjorie agreed to assist her on the journey. She told us her mother had made the choice “because she was always so independent and hated the idea of having to be reliant on me. She was a scientist. It was in keeping with her whole quite rational approach to life.”
