Dad, you are allowed to die: A physician's plea for voluntary assisted death

"I am just a physician who wishes to attend her fellow human beings at the end of their lives in a way they themselves, without external influence, consider proper and dignified. Life is the most precious gift (...) However, when existence is experienced only as suffering and medicine can no longer help, then we must return the gift into the hands of the dying, without fearing a long period of suffering and, above all, without fearing punishment from God or the legal system" writes the author of this book, Dr Erika Preisig, primary care physician, who grew up in a family with strong Christian values. Her father's death was the key experience in forming this attitude as he was the first patient she attended in a physician-assisted suicide and, by doing so, whom she helped to die peacefully and painlessly. This book is her committed plea for humane dying. Not an ideological plea but rather a conviction that has evolved over time, informed by her daily experience of numerous end-of-life cases, that the taboo of physician-assisted death must be overcome if we really want to help people with serious and incurable diseases as well as dispel their biggest fears about dying. For further information visit www.lifecircle.ch