| ISSUE SUMMARY |
| Disabilities Ethical History International Medical Psychological Religious |
Australia Euthanasia advocates work to make suicide easy. Belgium Canada England Germany Netherlands Killing Babies, Compassionately. The Netherlands follows in Germany’s footsteps. Seduced by Death: Doctors, Patients, and Assisted Suicide The Slippery Slope: The Dutch Example New Zealand Switzerland Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Switzerland Assisted-Suicide in Switzerland |
Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Switzerland Samia A. Hurst & Alex Mauron, Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Switzerland: Allowing a Role for Non-Physicians, 326 Brit. Med. J. 271 (2003).The involvement of a physician is usually considered a necessary safeguard in assisted suicide and euthanasia. Legislation in Holland, Belgium, and Oregon all require it, as did the legalization of euthanasia in Australia’s Northern Territories. Article 115 of the Swiss penal code considers assisting suicide a crime only if the motive is selfish. It condones assisting suicide for altruistic reasons. It does not require the involvement of a physician, nor that the patient be terminally ill. It only requires that the motive be unselfish. Prosecution happens if doubts are raised on the patient’s competence to make an autonomous choice. This is rare. Swiss law does not recognize the concept of euthanasia. It is considered less severely than murder without the victim’s request, but it remains illegal. In practice, many physicians oppose assisted suicide and euthanasia, and hospitals have barred assisted suicide from their premises. Resources for palliative care in Switzerland are not yet available to all terminally ill patients. This remains a strong argument against decriminalizing euthanasia, and also against assisted suicide. No validated statistics exist for assisted suicides in Switzerland. These deaths are not differentiated from unassisted suicides in official records. According to the president of one of the Swiss right to die societies, around 1800 requests for assisted suicides are made each year. Two thirds are rejected after screening. Half of the remaining people die of other causes, leaving about 300 suicides assisted by the societies annually. This constitutes around 0.45% of deaths in Switzerland. In comparison, reported assisted suicides in Oregon represents 0.09% of deaths, and other U.S. data showed a rate of assisted suicide and euthanasia of 0.4% among terminally ill patients. The rate of assisted suicide in the Netherlands is 0.3%, lower than the estimate for Switzerland. Posted on June 26, 2004. |