Clarification is needed. This is the impression you get when you follow what opponents of assisted suicide contribute to the current debate. Assisted suicide is presented as “active euthanasia”, which is tantamount to killing on demand. It is proclaimed that “commercial” euthanasia is banned in Germany, although this ban is only just being sought by leading opponents of assisted suicide. It is claimed as a fact that doctors should not be affected by such a ban, although this is also being demanded from various sides. People are said to be afraid of being pressured into committing suicide. This may be true in individual cases, and such people need to be reassured. But there is no organization that urges them to do so. However, three quarters of our population would like to be helped to end their lives in a self-determined way if the worst comes to the worst. Palliative care has a solution for all end-of-life conditions, they say. The fact that in many cases this solution only consists of putting patients into a deep unconsciousness (artificial coma) until they die is concealed. Even the chairman of a medical association explains that it is possible to shorten suffering by using strong painkillers, although shortening life in this context is only permitted as an unintended side effect of pain relief. In practice, however, this side effect does not occur at all with proper medication. Furthermore, it is not always or not only pain conditions that give rise to the desire to shorten life. Diversionary tactics and misrepresentations, whether intentional or a sign of a lack of knowledge on the part of some editors, politicians and debate speakers, do not serve to clarify existing problems and possible solutions, but instead create confusion. Critics of assisted suicide do not prove that anything is actually wrong at present. Rather, fears of all kinds lead to ideas of bans of all kinds. In contrast, the Humanist Association of Germany, in its recently published brochure “Am Ende des Weges” (At the end of the road), presents positions on how assisted suicide and suicide prevention can be made legally secure and compatible with the general public. As “full-time or voluntary workers … the authors have been dealing with the ethical problems of assisted suicide for many years” and are “aware of the complexity of the issues involved and the care they require”. In the debate, they plead “for reason and objective arguments, for mutual tolerance and secular pluralism”. The current legal situation and proposed amendments are discussed. In accordance with the principle of “prevention instead of prohibition”, it is proposed that non-profit suicide counseling centers be introduced, which are characterized by the provision of suicide-prevention alternatives as well as open-ended suicide conflict counseling. Doctors can play a major role in this.
However, the authors do not consider the restriction of counseling to doctors to be suitable for meeting the diverse wishes of people on the one hand and the limited availability of medical suicide counseling and willingness to help on the other. Furthermore, a legal clarification of the current legal situation is proposed, according to which any person who assists an adult with voluntary capacity to commit suicide or accompanies them until their self-induced death is in principle not liable to prosecution. It also calls for the drug sodium pentobarbital, which has been tried and tested in Switzerland, to be approved for medically appropriate assistance.
Erwin Kress, Vice President and speaker on the topic of autonomy at the end of life
The brochure can be obtained from the Humanist Association of Germany
Wallstr. 61-65 | 10179 Berlin E-mail: info@humanismus.de Phone: 030 613 904 34
