An Irish woman who told her family she was travelling abroad for a holiday instead went to Switzerland to undergo assisted suicide, leaving her daughter to learn of her death through a WhatsApp message.
Maureen Slough, 58, from Cavan, informed her family that she was going to Lithuania with a friend. In reality, she travelled to Switzerland, where she had arranged an assisted death, a decision she had shared only with two close friends.
Her daughter, Megan Royal, learned the truth the following evening when one of her mother’s friends contacted her.
“A close friend of hers messaged me on Wednesday night, possibly at like 10 pm. I was in bed with the baby,” Royal told the Irish Independent. “He just replied like, ‘Your mom’s in Switzerland.’ He’s like, ‘You have a right to know. I was sworn to secrecy. She’s there and she wants assisted suicide.’ I was so scared at that moment.”
She said she immediately contacted her father, who attempted to reach Slough in Switzerland.
“What was worse was not only did I get the text on WhatsApp, they had advised me that her ashes would be posted to me in 6–8 weeks. In that very moment, because I was alone, I just sat there with the baby and cried… I just felt like my world ended,” she recalled.
The message Royal received came from Pegasos, an assisted dying nonprofit based in Liestal, Switzerland. She later discovered that her mother, who had told her she would be returning home, had secretly applied to the organisation and paid approximately 20,000 euros (about Rs 17.8 lakh) for the procedure.
Assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since 1942. Unlike euthanasia, which is prohibited, individuals are required to administer the life-ending medication themselves.
Slough’s brother, Philip, a solicitor based in the UK, wrote to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office requesting an investigation. He alleged that Pegasos had disregarded its own policy of notifying family members, according to Right to Life UK.
Megan Royal described her mother as “a fiery, smart and dedicated woman” but said she had struggled with mental health problems, including a previous attempt to take her life following the deaths of her two younger sisters.
“No one’s saying she wasn’t feeling pain. Not pain good enough to go and end her life. She had a lot more life to live and give,” Royal said. “She was just in a dark time. She wasn’t terminally ill or, in my opinion, ill enough to go and do this and leave our family behind like that.”
Her ashes arrived in early August, and by the end of the month, the family held a funeral.
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