Suicide tourism have repeatedly criticized suicide assistance for foreigners, branding it "suicide tourism" ("Sterbetourismus" in German). In 2007, Dignitas launched an effort to gain legal permission for healthy foreigners, including married couples committed to suicide pacts, to end their lives in Switzerland. In July 2009, British conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife Joan died together at a suicide clinic outside Zürich "under circumstances of their own choosing." Sir Edward was not terminally ill, but his wife was diagnosed with rapidly developing cancer. In March 2010, the PBS Frontline TV program in the United States showed a documentary called "The Suicide Tourist"
Kerry Downes Kerry Downes Kerry John Downes (born 1930) is an English architectural historian whose speciality is English Baroque architecture. He is the son of the organist Ralph Downes (190493). He studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where he was inspired by the lectures of Margaret Whinney. He has written about (among other things) the English architects Nicholas Hawksmoor (1736), Sir John Vanbrugh (16641726) and Sir Christopher Wren (16321723), and the Flemish painter Sir Peter Paul Rubens (15771640). His fellow historian James Stevens Curl has written, "Downes's productivity seems to contradict his claim that procrastination is one of his recreations". In