Right to Die?, also known as The Suicide Tourist, is a documentary film directed by Canadian John Zaritsky about the assisted suicide of Craig Colby Ewert (1947–2006), a 59-year-old retired university professor who suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (sometimes known as Lou Gehrig's disease).
Ewert, who lived in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England[1] where assisted suicide is punishable by 14 years in jail, travelled to Switzerland where he was assisted by the Swiss NGO Dignitas at a rented Zurich apartment. The documentary, which covers the last four days of his life, shows him dying on 26 September 2006 with Mary, his wife of 37 years, at his side. An employee of Dignitas can be seen preparing a lethal dose of pentobarbital on camera, following which Ewert drinks it and dies.[2][3] He died listening to Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.[3][4] Ewert's children, Ivan and Katrina, who live in the US, decided not to attend their father's death after he expressed concerns that they would become upset.[5]
Right to Die? was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada on 14 November 2007 and at the Reykjavik International Film Festival in Iceland on 26 September. It was shown on Canadian and Swiss television and at film festivals, without controversy. It was shown on television in Hungary on 2 October 2008. It aired on Sky Real Lives in the UK in December 2008.[6] It aired in Germany on 24 January 2009.
The Suicide Tourist aired on Frontline on PBS in the USA on March 2, 2010.