Assisted-Suicide Pioneer Stirs a Legal Backlash

By DEBORAH BALL And JULIA MENGEWEIN
WSJ

ZURICH—Daniel Gall, a French actor, was skeptical when his sister and her husband told him two years ago that they wanted to commit suicide. Genevieve Gall-Peninou was 81 and said she could no longer bear the Alzheimer's Disease she had suffered for several years. Yves Peninou, 86, didn't want to live without her.

"No doctor would ever help you," he told the couple. "Neither one of you is ill enough!"

But soon after, the Peninous, both doctors, contacted Dignitas, a Zurich-based organization that helps people end their lives. A Dignitas doctor in Zurich reviewed the Peninous' case and agreed to write a prescription for sodium pentobarbital, the lethal drug typically used for assisted suicides in Switzerland. They paid Dignitas its fee of 10,000 Swiss francs ($10,500).

When Mr. Gall accompanied the couple to Switzerland in January 2008 for the final act, his doubts intensified about their decision–and about Switzerland's legalized assisted-suicide movement.

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