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An Irish family is grappling with the sudden loss of their 58-year-old mother, who secretly travelled to Switzerland to end her life through assisted suicide.
On July 8, Maureen Slough from Cavan, Ireland, told her family she was heading to Lithuania on holiday with a friend. But in reality, she flew alone to Switzerland and registered with Pegasos, an assisted dying nonprofit in Liestal, to undergo assisted suicide. The decision, carried out within two days, blindsided her family.
Her daughter, Megan Royal, recalled the chilling moment she first learned the truth. “A close friend of hers messaged me on the Wednesday night, possibly at like 10 pm I was in bed with the baby. He just replied like, ‘Your mom’s in Switzerland… she wants assisted suicide,’” Royal told the Irish Independent. “I was so scared in that moment.”
Though Royal and her father managed to reach Slough by phone that night and secured her promise to return, the following day brought a devastating text. “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,” Royal said. “In that very moment, because I was alone, I just sat there with the baby and cried… I just felt like my world ended.”
The WhatsApp message came from Pegasos itself, which informed the family that Slough had died after paying £15,000 (Rs 17.76 lakh) for the procedure. The group later said Slough had undergone psychiatric evaluation and was deemed of sound mind, citing her complaints of “unbearable chronic pain.”
But the family contests this account. Royal insists her mother, though long troubled by depression and past suicide attempts, was not terminally ill. “No one’s saying she wasn’t feeling pain. Not pain good enough to go and end her life,” she said. “She had a lot more life to live and give.”
Adding to their anguish, Royal now suspects Pegasos failed to properly verify consent. The organisation claims it received an email from her confirming awareness of Slough’s choice, but Royal alleges her mother may have created the correspondence herself. “It wasn’t even my email,” she told the Irish Independent. “With anything these days, 99 per ceent of things you settle you get a call to your phone. So why is it not like this when you’re about to lose your life?”
She added that the process left no room for compassion. “She was in and out in two days and that was the end of their communication with me. Not even a condolence letter with her urn. Not even a fragile sticker on the box, just bounced around the back of a post van.”
The family is now pushing for answers. Slough’s brother, Philip, a solicitor in the UK, has written to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office demanding an investigation. In his letter, he alleged Pegasos “failed to follow its own policy of informing family” and described the circumstances of Slough’s death as “highly questionable.”
Assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since 1942, but critics have long pointed to the risks of weak oversight. Unlike euthanasia, which remains banned, assisted suicide requires individuals to administer the fatal dose themselves. Campaigners have warned that loopholes allow people with mental health struggles, but not terminal conditions, to access the service.
By early August, Slough’s ashes arrived in Ireland. The family buried her alongside her two sisters later that month. Yet, for Royal, the grief remains raw. “People are saying to me, ‘At least you didn’t find her in a bad way over here.’ Well, it was just as bad to me,” she said.
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