Founder of Swiss Assisted-Suicide Outfit Dignitas Takes His Own Way Out—at 92

Well, this one practically writes itself.

Ludwig Minelli, the guy who spent decades insisting that "self-determination" means helping strangers kill themselves in a rented apartment outside Zurich, has now chosen the very service he built. Dignitas announced Monday that its 92-year-old founder died on November 29 by what it delicately calls "voluntary assisted dying," [aka: suicide] just six days shy of his 93rd birthday.

In its statement, the organization praised Minelli as a "pioneer and warrior" who "stood unwaveringly for his convictions when it came to the protection of fundamental rights and the freedom of citizens." Except that warriors don't kill themselves when they have the fight in front of them.

Dignitas promises to keep the lights on and the lethal barbiturates flowing: "The Dignitas team will continue to manage and develop the association in the spirit of its founder as a professional and combative international organization for self-determination and freedom of choice in life and at the end of life." [But especially when you decide it's the end of your life.]

Color me stunned that the guy who turned suicide into a Swiss cottage industry eventually decided to become his own best one-time customer.

Minelli founded Dignitas in 1998, and the group claims to have facilitated roughly 4,000 deaths since then. Meanwhile, assisted suicide numbers in Switzerland itself have exploded--an 824.6% increase among residents from 2003 (187 cases) to 2023 (1,729 cases), according to official data. That's not a trend; that's a rocket ride to the great beyond.

And who's riding it hardest are women and the very old. 

Women made up 59.92% of last year’s assisted suicides (1,036 out of 1,729), preserving a steady 3-to-2 edge over men for two decades. Among those 95 and older, 94.29% of all suicides from 2019–2023 were assisted. For the 85–94 crowd, the figure is 87.71%. When nine out of ten "suicides" in a demographic require an organization to hand you the cup, something has gone seriously wrong with how a society treats its elderly.

Pro-life observers aren’t mincing words. One typical reaction: "The apparently ever-increasing numbers of elderly people ending their lives through assisted suicide in Switzerland ought also to be deeply alarming for advocates and opponents of assisted suicide… It speaks to a profound cultural malaise that any culture would actively facilitate, and, to that extent, encourage its elderly population to end their lives by suicide."

Another called it straight: these are "deaths of despair" and "a form of abandonment of the elderly."

So the man who spent his life arguing that suicide is the ultimate expression of autonomy has now provided the ultimate object lesson. When even the high priest of the death clinic decides it's time to check out rather than endure another year of life, maybe, just maybe, that tells us something about the product he was selling.

File under: Be careful what you normalize. You might end up living, or not living, long enough to prove your critics right.

What a way to go.

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Governor who's committing suicide by food wants Illinois to allow state's visitors to commit suicide too

Illinois Democrats are at it again, shoving through a ghoulish Halloween special that's straight out of a dystopian nightmare: a bill to turn the Land of Lincoln into a one-stop shop for assisted suicide, all while trampling on the religious freedoms of doctors who actually believe in the sanctity of life. And it's just sitting there on Gov. J.B. Pritzker's desk, waiting for his progressive pen to make it official.

In the witching hour just after midnight on All Hallows' Eve, Illinois Senate Democrats bulldozed this death-on-demand legislation through in a 30-27 vote, capping off a House passage back in May. The measure would green-light doctors to hand out lethal prescriptions to terminal patients with six months or less to live, because this is how the left views "compassion."

But here's where it gets even more insidious: Conservative watchdogs are sounding the alarm that this isn't just about "choice," it's a full-frontal assault on faith-based medicine, forcing Christian physicians and hospitals to play along with the grim reaper's playbook.

"You're not just allowing physicians to give people deadly drugs to kill themselves, but you're actually forcing us or people of faith, to be part of it, to promote it," Peter Breen, head of litigation at the Thomas More Society, laid it out bluntly to conservative outlet The Daily Wire. "I know of no other state where the legislature has gone this far in restricting the religious liberty rights of people of faith."

Sure, the bill pays lip service to opt-outs for doctors who won't pull the trigger themselves. But Breen isn't buying it.

 Buried in the fine print are mandates that would compel institutions and physicians to refer patients to the poison pill parade and even advertise the "opportunity" to check out early. It's coercion dressed up as consent.

Worse, Breen warns, the language would tie the hands of Christian hospitals, making it impossible to boot a doctor who peddles assisted dying on the side, on or off campus. Because why stop at killing the patient when you can kill religious liberty too?

Ten states plus D.C. already flirt with this folly on both coasts, but Illinois? This would plant the flag of euthanasia smack in America's heartland, a beacon for the terminally ill from flyover country, and beyond.

"Illinois would become the first state in the middle of the country to enact assisted suicide," Breen hammered home. "There’s a significant concern that this is going to turn Illinois into a suicide tourism state."

What the Prairie State Democrats are peddling here is beyond the pale, a direct middle finger to Christian ethics that value life until the last breath. The Illinois Catholic Conference has blasted the bill and begged Biggie Pritzker to spike it like a bad shot.

Pritzker eyes the other sandwich

Even Breen, no fan of the governor's hard-left bona fides, clings to a sliver of optimism: Pritzker might actually veto this monstrosity over the First Amendment fallout. Fingers crossed, because the guy's track record isn't exactly a rosary of restraint.

For his part, Pritzker's playing the empathy card without committing. "I know how terrible it is that someone who's in the last six months of their life could be experiencing terrible pain and anguish. And I know people who’ve gone through that," he mused Monday. "It hits me deeply and makes me wonder about, you know, how we can alleviate the pain that they’re going through?"

If he inks this abomination, though? Game on. Breen vows the Thomas More Society will haul Illinois into court faster than you can say "equal protection." They've already tangled with the state over a prior outrage forcing pro-life pregnancy centers to shill for abortion, talk about déjà vu from hell. Let's hope the judge's gavel rings louder than the Democrats' death knell.

If you like Brain Flushings and want to Buy Me a Coffee, I would appreciate it, as it supports my work. Obviously, there is no pressure but I certainly wouldn't stop you. 

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