One-way ticket to Zürich: presentations of ‘Suicide tourism’ in European news media

Abstract

In recent years, stories of individuals travelling to Switzerland for an assisted death have been the subject of a notable number of news reports, particularly in the UK, giving the impression that this is largely a British practice. Coverage of individuals undertaking this journey, colloquially known as ‘suicide tourists’, frequently features in newspaper media in other European countries however, presented as a rousing reminder of the incongruity between the modern desire for greater choice over one’s death, and the law on assisted suicide making this practice a crime in all but a few European nations. In this mixed-methods study I explore the framing of suicide tourism in the newspaper media of four Western European countries between 2002 and 2021. A quantitative analysis of trends in reporting was carried out initially, complemented by a qualitative thematic analysis of news stories using a critical discourse framework. Four themes indicative of a wider ‘European’ discourse employing common frames, language, and meaning were identified: 1/suicide tourism as an individual choice grounded on a desire for autonomy and self-determination 2/Dignitas as an ‘emergency exit’ 3/the law on assisted suicide as outdated and coercive, and 4/dying in Switzerland as a ‘good death’.