Is euthanasia a criminal offense?

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

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Euthanasia is to be reorganized. Does anyone who helps others die face imprisonment in the future? Or is self-determined death made easier?

To die peacefully and without pain - such a death is not granted to everyone. Modern palliative medicine can achieve a lot, but sometimes it also reaches its limits. Not only physical suffering, but also the feeling of “no longer being in charge of one's own house”, as the writer Wolfgang Herrndorf, suffering from a brain tumor, put it, can make people want a self-chosen death.

Herrndorf finally took his own life. But not every seriously ill person who wants to die has the means or the strength to do so. It is not uncommon for the terminally ill to ask their doctor to help them die. According to a survey by the Institute for Demoscopy in Allensbach, every third doctor has already been confronted with such a request - and even every second general practitioner.

Are doctors allowed to help with death?

Assisted suicide is currently exempt from punishment in Germany. This means that giving sick people a deadly cocktail, which they drink independently, is allowed, for example, to relatives, but also to professional euthanasia. Doctors, on the other hand, face drastic consequences if their license to practice is withdrawn. Because they are already prohibited from euthanasia within the framework of the so-called model occupational regulations. In practice, however, such cases occur again and again, because for many doctors assisted suicide is a last, merciful service to the patient. However, there is no reliable information on how often this actually occurs.

Imprisonment for euthanasia

The problem for euthanasia could worsen with the planned new regulation on November 6th: Depending on how the Bundestag votes, the assisted suicide could have legal consequences for everyone in the future. Anyone who helps a loved one to die would risk several years in prison. At least that is what the legislative proposal of the CDU MP Patrick Sensburg provides, who wants to ban euthanasia in general.

For doctors, the suggestion by Michael Brand from the CDU and the SPD parliamentarian Kerstin Griese is also a delicate one. According to them, assisted suicide should remain unpunished, but business-like euthanasia intended for repetition should be punished. This proposal aims to remove the legal ground from euthanasia associations and commercial euthanasia. But he could also meet doctors who repeatedly assisted suicide.

A question of conscience

The German Ethics Council takes a different position. The majority of its members agree that assisting suicide is not a medical task, but recommend that "contradicting decisions of conscience (of the doctor) should be respected in exceptional situations".

In fact, a ban on medically assisted suicide could undermine the relationship of trust between the terminally ill person and the doctor. "Seriously ill people must be able to speak openly about any wishes they may have to die - without having to fear sanctions for themselves, their relatives or their practitioners," says Prof. Lukas Radbruch, President of the German Society for Palliative Medicine (DGP), who nevertheless opposes medically assisted suicide pronounces. The doctor fears that the end of life, accompanied by a doctor, will open a door that can no longer be closed.

From the point of view of the palliative care physicians, seriously ill people who ask for euthanasia would not necessarily want their immediate death, but rather often simply the end of an unbearable situation. In addition, in the experience of many palliative care professionals, the desire to die is often ambivalent and not always permanent.

The main concern of all those who are calling for the law to be tightened: People who are afraid of being a burden to others may feel compelled to die if euthanasia becomes "more normal".

Self-determination until the end

But there are also many voices who want to make euthanasia easier - including medical assistance in suicide. This includes the legislative proposal, for which, among others, Green politician Renate Künast and Petra Sitte from the Left are advocating. They expressly only want to ban commercially oriented euthanasia. Bundestag Vice President Peter Hintze, who worked out a proposal together with the deputy SPD parliamentary group leader Carola Reimann, even wants to go one step further: Doctors should even be expressly allowed to assist in suicide. On the one hand, these regulations are intended to abolish the legal gray area in which doctors operate today. Above all, however, it is about strengthening people's self-determination at the end of life.

In the German population at least there is a clear majority on this difficult question - namely in favor of euthanasia for seriously ill people. In a survey by the Institute for Demoscopy in Allensbach, 67 percent were in favor, only 13 percent were against.

Tags:  travel medicine desire to have children laboratory values