Three years ago, I sat in a hotel in Zurich, awaiting my flight home, wondering how I was going to get through the next few weeks and months. Having been with my wife, Christy, at Dignitas the day before, I was hoping I would avoid prosecution. That day had been the most profound day of my life, full of great sadness, but also great love, and a sense of peace that Christy had been able to die as she wished, without going through the inevitable pain and difficulty that she dreaded. A month earlier, she had written in her diary: “I don’t feel particularly frightened of the death itself. I am frightened about having to let go of life. I feel I have lived life to the absolute full … But … I’m not prepared to go on living this painful and difficult life as it continues to worsen.”

Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s an easy process to go to Dignitas. It is not. Christy had six months of covert bureaucracy and constant stress that someone might find out and stop her from going, as well as anxiety about the legal jeopardy I would face.

Why should anyone have to go through all that additional trauma at the most vulnerable time of their life? After first contacting Dignitas, she wrote: “Feeling an enormous sense of relief at the possibility of assisted dying. Realise I have been … living under a cloud of fear for two years now. There seem to be new symptoms every week. I’ve been independent all my life. It’s the loss of this that is hardest to bear.”

Back in London, I had no........

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