ONE hundred letters addressed in Anne Turner’s distinctive hand, sealed in identical ivory envelopes, were posted to her relatives, friends and former colleagues yesterday.
When opened they will reveal farewell messages, explaining how and why Dr Turner chose to end her life with the help of Dignitas, a Swiss euthanasia clinic, on the eve of her 67th birthday. Her poignant personal goodbyes were preceded by a powerful public appeal to the Government to allow assisted suicide in Britain.
Interviewed before she flew to Zurich to die, Dr Turner said that she was taking her life sooner than she wanted because she had to be well enough to travel. Nor did she want her illness to get so bad that she could not swallow the barbiturates that would kill her.
Her progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), an incurable degenerative disease, was diagnosed in 2004. It was in its early stages and she could still walk unaided, eat and communicate. The PSP Association says that patients live for an average of seven years with the disease, but Dr Turner, whose husband Jack died from a degenerative illness in 2002, said that she was “resolute” about her decision.
“I know that people say that I look well, but I’m not,” she said. After a failed suicide attempt in October she contacted Dignitas for help. Growing unsteadiness had resulted in several nasty falls and fractures.
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Dr Turner said: “I think it is very, very important that people have the opportunity to do in this country what I’m going to do. I feel strongly that assisted suicide should become legal in this country.
“In order to ensure that I am able to swallow the medication that will kill me, I have to go to Switzerland before I am totally incapacitated and unable to travel. If I knew that when things got so bad, I would be able to request assisted suicide in Britain, then I would not have to die before I am completely ready to do so.”
Before leaving her hotel yesterday Dr Turner added: “I have been forced to die in a strange country, not at home.” At 12.35 GMT Dr Turner, who was born in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, became the 42nd Briton to die with the help of Dignitas. She drank the barbiturates in a flat in Zurich owned by the clinic and slipped into a coma, dying 25 minutes later.
Her three children, Sophie Pandit, 41, Edward Turner, 39 and Jessica Wharton, 37, were holding her hands when she died. The family flew to Switzerland on Sunday. During their last days together they attended a Beethoven concert, enjoyed a boat trip on Lake Zurich and toured the city in its famous old trams. On Monday night they opened a bottle of champagne at dinner and had “a good cry”.
Dr Turner’s children will face a police investigation when they return home. Mr Turner said that during his mother’s last two hours they “chatted together, sang some songs and joked”. After Dr Turner’s disease was diagnosed she told her children that she would take her own life rather than become dependent on carers.
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For many years she had been a member of the campaigning organisation Dying in Dignity — which changed its name from the Voluntary Euthanasia Society on Monday — and had watched her husband’s degeneration from a similar illness. She knew that Dudley Moore, the comedian and actor, had suffered with PSP. Dr Turner said: “I didn’t want to end up like Jack, and with PSP the prognosis is much worse. I do not want to end up like Dudley Moore. H e could not walk, talk or even blink at the end.” Dr Turner ran a family planning clinic in Bath but retired at 58 to care for her husband, who was also a GP in the city. She said that she had taken mental health advice before deciding to go ahead with her suicide. Her children supported her.
Before her mother’s death Mrs Pandit said: “Having seen the way our father deteriorated, seeing him corpse-like, unable to swallow, and yet more incapacitated every time I came home . . . it’s a relief to think she is not going to have to suffer like that.”
Mr Turner emerged from the flat a short time after his mother died. He said: “She would have found it a lot easier if she could have done it in the UK. We would have liked to have had her around for longer, of course, but she has got to die some time and she has got to die when it’s right for her.”
Before her death Dr Turner said she was not afraid of her choice. She said: “I don’t think death has ever held any fear for me. I haven’t got faith, I’m a humanist. I’ve always felt that dying is like going to sleep.”
A spokesman for the Christian Medical Fellowship said: “This tragic case involves a lady in the early stages of an illness which is not usually fatal.”
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TOWARDS A CHANGE IN THE LAW
1935: Voluntary Euthanasia Society (VES) formed by doctors, lawyers and clergymen
1936: Voluntary Euthanasia Bill presented in House of Lords and rejected
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1961: Suicide decriminalised but assisting a suicide still punishable by up to 14 years in jail
1969: Bill again debated in the Lords and rejected
1978: Derek Humphry publishes Jean’s Way, telling of his wife’s pact with him to end her own life
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1980: Exit, the euthanasia society, publishes the world’s first suicide guide
1981: Nicholas Reed, of the English VES, jailed for assisting suicides
1993: Law lords allow withdrawal of a feeding tube from Tony Bland, who was in a persistent vegetative state
1995: British Medical Association produces a code on living wills
2002: Diane Pretty, who has motor neurone disease, asks the European Court to allow her husband to help her to commit suicide. She loses, but dies weeks later
2003: Reg Crew is helped to die by Dignitas, the first British case to come to light since the Swiss clinic was set up in 1998
2005: Lord Joffe’s Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill goes to the House of Lords
2006: The VES changes its name to Dignity with Dying