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I just finished watching the most recent Frontline episode, entitled “The Suicide Tourist”.  It was, simply put, the most powerful and affecting thing I have ever seen on television.  I write this with tears in my eyes, and an entirely new perspective on physician assisted suicide.

The program documents a man named Craig Ewert, who, five months earlier had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease.  After his diagnosis he began to rapidly lose motor function, and when the film begins, he is paralyzed from the neck down.  His wife of several decades is with him constantly.   Mr. Ewert has decided that he would prefer suicide to total paralysis followed by prolonged death, so he travels to Zurich, where assisted suicide is legal, and with the help of a group called Dignitas, ends his life, with his wife holding his hand, and Beethoven playing on the radio.

What makes this program so powerful is that one gets to know Mr. Ewert.  He is a likable, chatty person, who, until his diagnosis was living an active, interesting life, which, were it not for the disease, he would love to continue.  But he fears that if he waits too long, he will lose the ability to move a muscle, at which point assisted suicide would be impossible, leaving him in a prolonged vegetative state, causing his family years of agony.  No one watching could feel anything but profound sympathy for him and his family.  And when he finally drinks the drug that will stop his heart, which he knows will separate him from everyone and everything he has ever known and loved, the tragedy is overwhelming.

I used to think that only ghoulish doctors exploited suffering people by helping them end their lives.  But “The Suicide Tourist” depicts something else entirely.  I am a man of strong faith.  I don’t take matters of death lightly.  But as someone who feels for those who suffer, I cannot ignore that, for some, death is the more dignified, humane, and, ultimately, loving alternative.

I don’t want to take the smile away from anybody’s face, but if you want to witness the most profound portrait of human courage and dignity, watch “The Suicide Tourist”.

Filed under: Health, Television on March 4th, 2010 | No Comments »

The 2010 Winter Olympics concluded this week, and I could hardly have watched more of them if I wanted.  I tuned in every night for two weeks, and even though there were sports I didn’t care to see (snowboarding, ice dancing, etc.), and even though I wish NBC weren’t so captivated by a cult of personality, focusing too much attention on big celebrity athletes, I enjoyed most of it a great deal.  And, in spite of the fact that the weather sometimes didn’t fully cooperate, and some of the venues experienced technical difficulties, Vancouver seems the ideal place for Olympic games.

But not everyone likes the idea of the Olympics moving from city to city, country to country.  In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Monday, former Olympic rower, Charles Banks-Altekruse, argues that the Olympic games–both summer and winter–should move permanently to Switzerland.

Banks-Altekruse correctly points out that the Olympics are hugely expensive events that can be financially crippling to the host cities and countries.  Part of Greece’s present fiscal turmoil is due, no doubt, to the 2004 games in Athens.  Meanwhile, I clearly remember how worried people were about whether the Olympic facilities and venues would be complete in time for the games.  The paint was still drying when the 2004 Olympics began.  That Greece had to build arenas and a stadium from scratch is emblematic of what makes the Olympics so costly for host cities.  Beijing built hugely expensive facilities that now lie dormant.  Sochi is building a new Olympic park from scratch that will, no doubt, cost a fortune. Rio de Janeiro will spend billions of dollars it simply doesn’t have to host the 2016 summer games.

Atlanta spent tons of money, too, but did things a bit smarter.  The stadium that hosted the opening and closing ceremonies as well as track and field in 1996 was converted to host baseball after the games concluded.  Other Olympic events were held at facilities at universities in northern Georgia.  Los Angeles, too, used existing infrastructure in 1984, and made money.  But times have changed, and expectations have changed.  I suspect that, like professional sports teams do, the International Olympic Committee now expects the latest and greatest, and an old stadium–the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was over sixty-years-old when the 1984 games began–simply wouldn’t do.

Meanwhile, Banks-Altekruse argues that potential political conflicts like the one that thwarted his Olympic hopes in Moscow in 1980, and kept Eastern Bloc nations away from Los Angeles in 1984, make it essential that the Olympics find a permanent, neutral home.  I acknowledge that that was a big shame, and, in retrospect, neither of those cities was the ideal choice, since the IOC certainly must have realized that boycotts would occur.

But I think the political climate around the world have changed in the past twenty-five years, and I doubt that we will see another significant Olympic boycott, unless future games are, somehow, awarded to Tibet or Somalia.

And, though the financial issue is a serious matter, I don’t believe that that justifies moving the Olympics permanently to Switzerland, which would, according to Banks-Altekruse, be able to afford its hosting duties by averaging out the construction costs over a long term.

No, I think too much is gained by having the Olympics move around the world.  The experience seems richer, and the international goodwill, I believe, is genuine.

Filed under: Current Events, Musings, Politics, Sports on March 4th, 2010 | No Comments »