Married Couple To Have Assisted Suicide: First To Die In ‘Couple’ Anesthesia, Why Doctor Approved It

A longtime married couple will have assisted suicide and it’s been medically approved. The elderly husband and wife are going to great lengths to avoid living without one another.

Gulf News reports that Francis, 89, and Anne, 86, will have their wish to die together so neither has to live without the other.

The husband and wife will be the world’s first to end their lives by “couple” anesthesia. Everything is set and their doctor made sure they got approved for the procedure. Francis and Anne even have the support of their three children.

So, why would the Belgian couple’s doctor work to arrange such a drastic measure, and how can their children support the idea?

According to the report, the children would be unable to care for their parents when one becomes widowed. They found a practitioner by justifying it based on mental anguish that the one left living would endure if the other died first of natural causes.

Before the assisted suicide decision, the pair were planning to end their lives by overdosing on pills next February, which is when their 64th wedding anniversary is. The plan now is for them to have anesthesia at an undisclosed hospital in Belgium.

Francis says he and his wife fear being without one another.

“We want to go together because we both fear the future.”

The married couple receive regular care for major health problems. They’re hesitant about going into care, and a retirement home is financially too difficult for them.

As Daily Mail reports, Francis told Moustique that he and Anne chose euthanasia because they’re too scared to “jump from the 20th floor.”

“It takes courage to hang, it takes courage to jump into the canal. But a doctor who makes you a shot and lets you gently fall asleep? It does not take courage.”

Death by assisted suicide became legal in Belgium in 2002.

The decision for this couple’s assisted suicide pact will inevitably be met with controversy along the way.

Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick of Not Dead Yet UK, a group of disabled people against euthanasia, feel that death in Belgium is now considered “as lightly as stepping off a bus.”

‘The pro-euthanasia lobby says there is no extension from terminally ill candidates yet everywhere we turn in Belgium non-terminally ill people are being euthanised.”

The Inquisitr has written on assisted suicide before when an 85-year-old woman opted for euthanasia because of her fading looks.

[Image via Cosmetic Dentists News]