Dignitas founder ends his own life through assisted death

The head of the Swiss right-to-die organisation Dignitas chose to end his life through an assisted death, the group has said.

Ludwig Minelli, who founded the group in 1998, died on Saturday, just days before his 93rd birthday, Dignitas said. It added: “Right up to the end of his life, he continued to search for further ways to help people to exercise their right to freedom of choice and self-determination in their ‘final matters’ – and he often found them.”

Dignitas said it would “continue to manage and develop the association in the spirit of its founder as a professional and combative international organisation for self-determination and freedom of choice in life and at the end of life”.

Minelli, a journalist turned lawyer, faced many legal challenges and made several successful appeals to the Swiss supreme court and the European court of human rights (ECHR).

Internationally there has been a significant shift in attitudes towards assisted dying in the nearly three decades since Dignitas was founded. France recently voted to allow some people in the last stages of a terminal illness the right to assisted dying. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Spain and Austria have all introduced assisted dying laws since 2015. In the US, assisted dying is legal in 10 states.

In the UK there continues to be fierce debate over the assisted dying bill, which was backed by MPs in a vote in June and is now being scrutinised in the House of Lords. Last week peers were given an extra 10 days to debate the bill after a record number of amendments prompted concerns that it would run out of time to be passed into law.

If passed, the law would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales with fewer than six months to live to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel including a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist. However, opponents of the bill have said the legislation requires significant changes to ensure any system properly protects vulnerable people.

Paying tribute to Minelli on Sunday, Dignitas said his work had had a lasting influence on Swiss law, pointing to a 2011 ECHR ruling that recognised the right of a person to decide the manner and time of their own end of life.

Swiss law does not allow for euthanasia, where a doctor or other person administers a lethal injection, for example. But assisted dying – when a person who articulates a wish to die commits the lethal act themselves – has been legal for decades.

Unlike some similar organisations in Switzerland, Dignitas, which says it has more than 10,000 members, also offers its services to people living outside the country.

As of 2024, the organisation had helped more than 4,000 people end their lives, including 571 Britons. About 1,900 people from the UK are members of Dignitas, including the TV presenter and assisted dying campaigner Esther Rantzen.

In 2023 Minelli told the Financial Times he was still “working all day and half the night” at the age of 90, and argued that assisted dying should be available to almost everyone.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this article.