On a day in early July, Edward Downes and his wife Joan lay down on adjoining beds, drank a lethal cocktail of barbiturates, and died peacefully soon afterward.

As John Burns reported in the New York Times, the couple had flown from London to Zurich where a Swiss clinic, Dignitas, had arranged for them to end their lives in this way.

For doing so, this agency charged the equivalent of 6,570 dollars. In Britain, it would have been illegal for them to assist one another in suicide.

Their son Caractacus and their daughter Boudicca accompanied them on this last trip. The two adult children watched and wept as their parents, holding hands, drank the fatal potion.

Sir Edward Downes was one of the best known orchestral conductors in his native land. Among other highlights of his career, he had conducted 950 operas at the Royal Opera House during a tenure of more than 50 years.

His wife Joan, though not so well known as her husband, had been a noted dancer and television producer.

Their death attracted much attention in the United Kingdom and sparked discussion about the laws against assisted suicide. It drew less comment here, but for me it raises important questions about end-of life decisions.

As with so many moral and ethical issues, I feel mixed about what the Downeses did.

Even when suicide goes against one’s long-held moral convictions, as it certainly does mine, the circumstances here prompt our understanding and sympathy.

Joan Downes, age 74, was already slowly dying of cancer and did not have long to live. Her husband, age 85, was not terminally ill. However, he had become almost totally blind, and his hearing had declined precipitously. For a musician like him, these were terrible disabilities.

Undeniably, there was something beautiful about the way they died. Theirs apparently was a love that impelled them to leave this world together. Their death put the seal on a deeply held affection within a marriage that had lasted 54 years.

They had presumably judged that life held nothing more for them except suffering and disability. To them, it would have seemed reasonable to bring their lives to an end in a dignified and shared manner.

Though the Downes couple has my sympathy and understanding, I cannot for myself accept their way of dying, nor recommend it to others. My own belief reserves death to action not my own.

I freely admit, however, that I might feel sorely tempted, and might even give in to suicide, if my own suffering were experienced as intolerable. The failure of medical science to relieve my torment would serve as a strong inducement for resorting to self-destruction.

Suicide, of course, goes against Christian teaching, at least the Catholic part of the Christian tradition. Since childhood, I have believed that suicide violates God’s plan for human life.

The Catholic Church, however, no longer denies Christian burial to suicides. Helped by modern psychology, the church has come to see that depression and other mental illness often prove irresistible forces leading to self-inflicted death.

So I cannot regard myself as morally superior to those who commit suicide; it simply remains outside my own moral code. And I would feel devastated by the action of family members or close friends who chose this way out.

Were my spouse in a situation like that of Joan Downes, I cannot imagine she would want me to die with her. Even if I were in a terminal condition myself, I do not think she would desire my life to end.

Nor, if our conditions were reversed, would I ever want her to die with me. Rather, I would wish her life to continue, even if she had various disabilities.

Please note, however, that I am strongly opposed to the prolongation of life through artificial means, when life is clearly no longer worth living. I would never want that, either for myself or for anyone else.

At the same time, I take seriously the teaching of my faith that holds the human body to be not simply under our own control but also in God’s hands. I do not feel free to put an end to my own life.

In an era when many more people than previously live to be very old, one can expect pressure for making suicide both legal and easily available. It will often seem the best response to intense suffering.

Currently, the state of Oregon is the only one to have legalized doctor-assisted suicide. As the years go on, I suspect some other states will follow Oregon’s example.

I would be happier, however, if hospice programs were to be more widely available. Similarly, skilled palliative care, such as too few hospitals currently provide, ought to be more readily available to everyone.

In this way, people could be better assured of dignified and pain-controlled dying.