An elderly couple are planning to travel to a clinic in Switzerland where they can die together by euthanasia, as they fear loneliness if one of them dies by natural causes.
Neither Francis (89) and Anne (86) from Brussels are terminally ill but are both receiving regular medical treatment for age-related ailments, with Francis battling prostate cancer for 20 years and Anne being partially blind and almost totally deaf.
According to the Daily Mail, the couple always go out shopping together because they are "scared that one day the other will not return home" and have planned to die together on their 64th anniversary next year. The pair's children have said that they support their decision, as they would be unable to care for either parent if they became widowed.
"We want to go together because we both fear of the future. It's as simple as this: we are afraid of what lies ahead. Fear of being alone and above all, fear of the consequences of loneliness," said Francis.
"It takes courage to jump from the 20th floor and I am unable even if I wanted to do it. 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. We are not sad, we are happy. When we were told we could leave life together smoothly, we were on a little cloud. It was as if we had spent all that time in a tunnel and suddenly we came into the light again."
