‘Die Glückssucherin. Warum Margrit Schäppi einen Lebensratgeber schrieb und trotzdem den Freitod wählte’ by Margrit Schäppi and Matthias Ackeret

In 2017, 81-year-old Margrit Schäppi, unknown to the public at the time, sent journalist and publisher Matthias Ackeret her manuscript of a life advisor based on her own biography. Ackeret did not at first seriously consider her request to help her publish it. This changed when Schäppi contacted him again six months later and told him that, without being seriously ill, she would take her own life in a fortnight with the help of the organisation ‘EXIT Deutsche Schweiz‘. Ackeret finally arranged for the publication of Schäppi’s book, which she did not live to see, following her assisted death. While Schäppi herself does not address this in her biography, Ackeret wrote an epilogue in which he not only describes his futile attempts to dissuade Schäppi from her wish to die, but also sharply criticises the Swiss assisted suicide model, which in his opinion has gotten out of hand. He particularly deplores the fact that the organisations active in the field are not more strictly regulated. As far as the specific case of Margrit Schäppi is concerned, he acknowledges that it does not lend itself to a critique of assisted suicide because her will to die was too strong. However, by presenting her as a dynamic, not seriously ill, but lonely woman when they met eleven days before her death, he suggests a premature demise. 

In his epilogue, Ackeret cites various artistic works on assisted suicide for his argument. Rhetorically, it is utterly polemical: referring to the rising numbers of assisted suicide cases in Switzerland, he complains that a ‘death industry‘ has developed, describing the work of the organisations in this ‘death market‘ as a ‘questionable business model‘ and asks whether the ‘providers‘, i.e. the organisations, are not subject to ‘entrepreneurial pressure‘, so that a ‘blind eye is turned‘ to individual ‘customers‘ in order to achieve their ‘business goals‘. The book – more the epilogue than the biography itself – was controversially discussed in the media. Ackeret, who as editor-in-chief and publisher of the magazine persönlich is himself a Swiss media personality, was repeatedly questioned in newspaper interviews on the subject of assisted dying, in which he repeated his views, sometimes verbatim. His epilogue was also published in an abridged version as an opinion piece on SWI swissinfo.ch, a Swiss public service news and information platform, which led to a response from EXIT’s communications director, who commented on the accusations in the same place. In the following years, Ackeret was also invited to podiums where representatives of EXIT and/or DIGNITAS were also present, and where he further advocated his points of view from his epilogue.