Assisted-Suicide Pioneer Stirs a Legal Backlash

Daniel Gall, a French actor, was skeptical when his sister and her husband told him two years ago that they wanted to commit suicide. Genevieve Gall-Peninou was 81 and said she could no longer bear the Alzheimer's Disease she had suffered for several years. Yves Peninou, 86, didn't want to live without her. A Dignitas doctor in Zurich reviewed the Peninous' case and agreed to write a prescription for sodium pentobarbital, the lethal drug typically used for assisted suicides in Switzerland. They paid Dignitas its fee of 10,000 Swiss francs ($10,500). When Mr. Gall accompanied the couple to Switzerland in January 2008 for the final act, his doubts intensified about their decision–and about Switzerland's legalized assisted-suicide movement. WSJ